Wild Card
by Eqgz
Summary: Coyomon finds love and purpose in life and overcomes his limitations and past injuries. A Season 3 alternate universe story. "M" just for safety, because there is some lemon content-- sort of. It's not like anything you've read before.
1. Getting to Know Her

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**Disclaimer:**

**Most of the characters herein are trademarked by Bandai and/or Toei. This work is derivative of season 3 of the Digimon television series (Digimon Tamers) and is in no way meant to imply ownership or infringe on any trademark or copyright.**

**A link to a picture of Coyomon can be found on my bio page.**

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WILD CARD

By Eqgz

--

Chapter 1

Getting to Know Her

--

There's an intricate and subtle dance of evaluation that goes on when digimon first meet. So much can go wrong, leading to unnecessary fights and, often, deaths.

I know this all too well.

That is why I planned my first meeting with Renamon well in advance. I had heard of her from other digimon and then cautiously watched her from a distance for a while. After only a short time, I knew I had to meet her.

I was smitten.

But I wasn't a fool. I had seen how feral and touchy she could be. Our first meeting had to go well.

--

The Big Ugly emerged just after sundown, not too far from Rika's home. She and Renamon were sure to be on him within moments. I settled myself in a big chestnut tree to watch the fight.

Renamon was magnificent. Big Ugly was a cloud of data before he even realized how outclassed he was.

She took a few good hits but nothing she couldn't shrug off with ease. Rika loaded her with a couple of unnecessary mods that just slowed her down. Or so it seemed to me.

I was so taken with the sight of Renamon, back arched, arms outstretched, drinking in the data, that I almost missed my entrance.

"Nicely done" I said as I dropped out of the tree. "I was going to offer to help, but you finished him off so fast I didn't get the chance."

Renamon and Rika were both instantly on guard. Renamon crouched into a fighting stance and Rika thumbed her digivice, looking at my stats. The dance began.

"Coyomon" Rita read out loud to Renamon. "Rookie. Some nasty-looking special attacks but nothing you can't handle."

Renamon's ice-blue eyes narrowed and she crouched lower, her thigh muscles bunching as she prepared to leap at me.

"Hey, wait" I said, "I'm a good guy! I'm not here to fight you.''

"Good guy, huh?" Rika said, her lip curling, ''Prove it."

Rude little brat.

''Well,'' I said in my most polite voice, angling my ears back in a friendly way, "I've been sitting in that tree since you got here. If I wanted to fight, I could have smacked Renamon with a sucker punch right when she was most distracted by that over-grown feather-duster."

Rika actually grinned at that. The Big Ugly had been an extravagant bird-type.

''Who's your tamer?" she asked. Another step of the dance.

''Well...'' I said, trying to sound embarrassed. I even curled my tail around and nervously fiddled with its tip. "I haven't actually _got_ one at the moment."

The tension was instantly back in the air. Digimon without trainers were 'wild ones' and almost always belligerent and destructive.

Rika scowled and said, ''You should have taken your cheap shot when you had the chance, fuzzy.'' She turned to her partner, who was trembling with eagerness for another fight. ''Renamon--''

I didn't wait for the rest. I had heard it before. I flipped up and back into the trees before Rika got out,"--walk all over him!''

If I hadn't been prepared for almost anything, Renamon would have caught me. She was _that _fast. As I shadow-walked away on my secret path I could hear Rika yelling at Renamon, urging her to get me, and Renamon's growls of frustration as she tore through the trees searching for some trace of me.

All in all, our first meeting had gone pretty well. The next one was a bit trickier.

--

I was getting pretty good at intuiting where wild digimon would bio-emerge and so it was only three days later that Renamon and I had our second meeting.

The Big Nasty that lumbered out of the fog was a huge, brute-force type. He was Champion level at least, maybe even Ultimate, that looked to be half machine, half dinosaur. I'd never fought an opponent that powerful before and I hesitated for an instant before deciding that another chance like this might not come along for a long while. And, as I said, I _was_ smitten. Infatuation can make you do dumb things.

I cut loose on him before he even knew I was there and stunned him a bit right at the onset. _So far, so good_, I thought. Now all I have to do is keep from being flattened while I wear him down. Fortunately, he was as slow as he was large. I had no trouble dodging his ordinary attacks. Even his tail whip seemed to wallow through the air, which was good because he was so strong he'd only need one solid hit to pulverize me.

My attacks seemed to just bounce off of his armored hide without doing any damage at all but I was picking my spots carefully and timing them to hit just when he was exposed, so I knew I was hurting him, even though he didn't show it.

Big Nasty's special attacks were a bit more worrying. His flaming breath wasn't too bad. He telegraphed it by rearing back and sucking in air first, so all I had to do was make sure I dodged far enough to be out of the splash area. No, the worst were the missiles. They were fast and maneuverable and I had to keep a careful eye on his shoulder-mounted pods in order to catch the first signs of their launch sequence. My fur got singed in several places and the concussions knocked me around a bit, but I avoided taking any major damage from the first two salvos.

After a couple of minutes Renamon arrived with Rika in tow. I couldn't spare much attention for them but I did hear Rika command Renamon not to interfere.

''It'll be fun to see Coyomon get stomped.'' she said.

''But Rika...'' Renamon began.

''No.'' Rika snapped.

I was really beginning to dislike that kid.

I soon realized that Big Nasty's timing was predictable. I positioned myself carefully as he inhaled for a blast of fire and ducked behind his left foot just as he let go. The big dummy thoughtlessly tracked me and roasted his own foot. He wasted time bellowing in pain and rage as I readied a special attack. As his weight came fully onto his other foot, I hit it with a Fang Flurry, pushing energy into it with every ounce of strength at my command. The flashing storm of tooth-shaped particles tore into his leg and Big Nasty shrieked and toppled over like a high-rise collapsing.

''Timber!" I cried. I couldn't resist the jibe. Besides, it gave me a second to rest. Big Nasty hit the dirt so hard the shock bounced me off the ground. Over the massive _whump_ of tons of meat and metal hitting the ground, I heard a completely unexpected sound; laughter. _Renamon _was laughing! Okay, it was more of a chuckle but, from _her_, even that was amazing.

I risked a glance at her and saw that Guilmon and Takato had joined the crowd along with a couple of digimon and a lot of people I didn't know.

Big Nasty was struggling to his feet and the timing of my next attack had to be perfect. I used his tail as a ramp to launch myself into a soaring leap as I gathered the energy for an Earth Splitter. Not the sort of attack you might expect to see used by someone on a ballistic trajectory through the sky but I'd experimented a bit and found it worked pretty well in certain unusual circumstances.

Big Nasty was managing to get his feet under him, ponderously lifting his huge head when I nailed him. I hit the back of his skull with both feet, right where it joined his spine, just as I unleashed the Earth Splitter. The crackle of energy slicing into him was deafening even though I had my ears pinned close to my head.

I've told myself a dozen times not to _anticipate_. I _know _that's the best way to get clobbered but I had already planned on what to do once I had rebounded from Big Nasty's skull. The problem was-- there suddenly was no skull to rebound _from_.

The Earth Splitter must have worked even better than I'd hoped. He broke up into a cloud of data and I went plunging down through the air where his body had been only an instant before. Fortunately, the spray of bits hid my floundering fall and ungraceful landing from the watching crowd until I was able to regain my feet and start downloading the data.

I'd never felt such a strong surge of energy before. I shuddered and gasped as the pulsing, crimson radiance soaked into me. Taking on the big guys sure had its advantages! I struck a nonchalant pose as I pulled in the last stray bits and grinned at the crowd. They were all gaping at me. I languidly raise one hand and snapped my fingers. "Piece o' cake!" I said. I'm such a liar.

Guilmon actually applauded and cheered, "Yay, Coyomon!"

I gave him my 1000-watt smile and tipped him a wink. What a sweet little guy.

Renamon was not the type to gawk but her icy gaze was fixed on me, eyes wide and pupils dilated and that was worth all the applause in the world to me. The rest of the crowd was murmuring to each other, nobody seemed to know what to do now that the threat had passed but Renamon certainly had something in mind. She suddenly strode toward me head lowered and eyes narrowing.

I let the smile drop from my face. I didn't think she was going to attack, certainly not without Rika's permission, but grinning into an advance like that would be a sign of weakness in any case.

Rika stopped talking to Takato when she noticed what was going on. "Renamon?" she said uncertainly. Renamon didn't hesitate or even blink; she just kept coming.

_Didn't automatically jump when she heard her mistress's voice? Well, that's a pleasant surprise_, I thought.

I stood as relaxed as possible, one hand on my hip, as she approached. It wasn't easy; the way she moved made me think of a gleaming sword, thirsting for blood. She stopped an arm's length from me and gave me the icy-blue once-over for a moment that seemed to last an eternity.

It was obviously my move, so I did the only thing I could think of: I raised an enquiring eyebrow.

"I'm impressed" she said quietly in that velvet death voice of hers.

I raised the other eyebrow. "Coming from _you_," I said, just as quietly, "that is quite a compliment."

She began to say something else but Rita's angry voice cut across the parking lot. "_Renamon!_"

"Yes, Rika?" Renamon answered her without turning away from me.

"Come here," Rika yelled, "Right now!"

Renamon paused before answering, still gazing at me. It felt like a very _long_ pause. "As you wish."

She turned away and waked back to Rika's side and stood there looking away into the distance. I just stood, enjoying the view of her perfect rump as she stalked away like a well-oiled machine until Guilmon came trotting up to me.

"Coyomon, that was great!"

''Thanks, little buddy! Hey--'' I lowered my voice conspiratorially ''D'you want to play some ball?''

''Sure!'' he cried happily and then looked me over in puzzlement. ''But where's the ball?"

''Oh, you know this vest of mine,'' I said, lifting the edge with one hand and reaching beneath it with the other. ''It's got all _sorts _of things hidden away in it!'' With a flourish, I pulled out a big red ball-- much too big to have been under my vest-- and tossed it into the air. Guilmon shouted happily and took off after it.

What I _actually _had inside my vest was a small portal to a little cache in the Digital Dimension. I could carry about a backpack's worth of stuff under my little vest. Very handy.

I raced off after Guilmon, jumping the cars he was forced to run around and we started a game of Make-Up-the-Rules-As-You-Go.

Of course, I was also listening to the conversations going on behind me. With ears as big as mine, it wasn't hard.

''You know this guy?'' Rika demanded of Takato.

"Sort of," he admitted sheepishly. ''He and Guilmon have played together in the park a few times. He seemed harmless.''

''_Harmless?" _Rika was outraged. "Did you see what he did to that armored dino?"

"Yeah! Wasn't it cool how he--'' Takato's voice trailed off, his enthusiasm killed by Rika's glare.

''I think he's dangerous and we ought to get rid of him.'' she growled.

A kid I didn't know joined the argument. ''Oh come on, Rika! What's he done that's so bad?"

His partner, a little digimon with prehensile ears, spoke up. "Yeah! He seems really nice.''

Rika was about to reply when Guilmon abruptly ended our ball game. He lunged at the ball just as it bounced off a truck tire and accidentally skewered it on his claws. The ball popped with a sharp bang and poor Guilmon was left with two ragged shreds of plastic. The surprised look on his face was so funny I had to laugh out loud.

''You killed the ball, little buddy! I guess that means you win!''

''I do?''

''Yup! And your prize is--'' I reached under my vest again, pulled out a pastry, sniffed at it as if I wasn't sure what it was, and held it out to him. "--an apple fritter!''

''Don't eat that!'' Rika shouted, stomping toward us with Renamon and her friends at her heels.

Both Guilman and I turned to look at her.

''Why not?'' we both asked at the same time.

''There might be-- something in it.''

The whole group stood, frozen for a moment, until I broke off a piece of the fritter and ate it in a very pointed manner.

''Just because I don't have a tamer doesn't mean I'm a bad guy." I said as I handed the rest of the fritter to Guilmon. ''Why does everybody think that?''

Poor Guilmon was too upset to eat his pastry. "Why _don't_ you have a tamer, Coyomon?"

Trust that uncomplicated little guy to cut to the heart of things. I looked from Rika to Renamon and back again. "I did--" I said in a voice just barely loud enough for them to hear. I sounded like a kicked puppy, even to myself. "--once."

Everybody tried to talk at once but I was already turning away. I ran off up the road while the commotion continued behind me. Rika had to order Renamon not to follow me and the little digimon with the ears (I should talk!) tried to follow but couldn't keep up when I took to the rooftops.

I stopped on the top of a cell tower a few miles away that was my favorite lookout spot and settled down, watching the city bustle beneath me, uncertain about how things had gone. But Renamon had been impressed-- no way _that _couldbe bad.

--


	2. Fun and Games

WILD CARD

Chapter 2

Fun and Games

--

I'm pretty good-- heck, I'm _really_ good at moving silently and secretly, riding the subtle energy flows of this world to travel undetected. Renamon knew those tricks too, it seemed. Two nights later, as I was walking along the top of a big stone wall, she just coalesced out of the darkness behind me.

"Rika doesn't like you." She said.

I turned to face her but continued walking, backwards, along the wall. "Who _does_ she like?" I asked.

Renamon allowed herself a tiny grin. I back-flipped off the wall, adding a turn and a half just to be showy, and landed on a rooftop across the street. Renamon followed, and we sat down together on the ridgeline. I waited for her to speak but she just looked out over the rooftops. I didn't say anything either. We just sat there together in the night. It was nice.

After a while a cat jumped onto the roof and began making its way along the gutter. We were so quiet it didn't notice us until it turned to climb toward the top of the roof. When it finally saw us, it froze and fluffed up to twice its normal size.

"You're lucky," I said to Renamon. The cat turned and fled.

"Why do you say that?"

"You've got a tamer who _wants_ you to fight. She helps you when you need it and stays out of your way when you don't. Must be nice." I knew this wasn't exactly true but I wanted to get her talking about herself, and one of the best ways to do that was to start by having her correct me on a misapprehension. But she didn't say what I expected her to.

"Wasn't your tamer like that?"

That was a surprise. It brought back a whole lot of painful memories. "No, he wasn't. He--" I shook my head and trailed off.

"Did he abandon you?" she asked very gently.

_Where did _that_ come from?_ "No, he-- he _died_."

"Oh-- I--"

"He tried to stop the fight." It was like my mouth was moving against my will. I didn't want to say these things. I didn't even want to _think_ about them, but I couldn't seem to stop. "He didn't even want me to fight in the first place and when he thought I was loosing, he ran out-- he got in the way and--" I shook myself and finally got control of my mouth. I turned away from Renamon and wiped at my eyes.

"I'm so sorry," she said.

I looked up at her. The last thing I had ever hoped to see in her eyes was pity. I stood up abruptly. "Yeah, I'm sorry too. He was a good kid." I looked down at her, hating what I was going to say next. "But he wasn't a good tamer." I could see I had shocked her. "That's why I said you were lucky. Rika may not be the sweetest bit of fluff in the world, but she's a damned good partner."

I leapt to the top of a power pole, crouching for my next jump. I looked back and Renamon was standing, looking up at me. She was so beautiful.

"And you know something--" I said just before I leapt away into the night, "She's almost worthy of you."

--

I almost pitied the wild digimon who got in my way that next week. Those suckers got no mercy from me at all. Not that they ever did, I guess, but in the past I had often given the poor guys a bit of entertainment in their last few minutes of existence. Now, for some reason, I seemed to have lost my sense of humor.

I stayed away from the partnered digimon, even though I'd felt a strong desire to go kick around a ball with Guilmon a couple of times. I don't think I trusted myself to play nice.

I had just finished thoroughly stomping a crab-like Champion and was basking in the afterglow of a heavy infusion of data when the little digimon with the big ears glided down from the top of a delivery van.

"You sure clobbered _him _good." he said.

I shrugged. "Yeah-- well, that's what we do, isn't it?"

"Yup. But I couldn't help noticing you were still throwing punches when he'd already popped like a balloon." As he said this he used his ears to mime the action he was describing. He balled up the ends like fists and punched the air.

As much as I didn't care for an animated plush toy lecturing me on my fighting style, I couldn't help but laugh at his antics.

"Okay, I guess I'm not in the best of moods. I suppose I took it out on my opponent."

"I'll say! He'd have run away with his tail between his legs if you'd have let him." He paused for a second in thought. "And if he'd _had _a tail."

I grinned. I was starting to like this little guy. "I saw you last week with Guilmon and the others so I guess you know who I am. Who're you?" I asked as I stuck out my paw for him to shake, Western style.

He grabbed it with one of his ears and shook. He had a pretty good grip, too. "I'm Terriermon. My tamer is Henry Wong."

_Tamer._ I frowned again.

"Why are you in such a bad mood? Maybe I can cheer you up!"

I snorted. "Didn't Renamon tell all of you?" I figured the news that I'd gotten my own partner killed would be spread around pretty widely by now.

Terriermon just blinked his beady little eyes at me in puzzlement. "Renamon hasn't said anything about you. In fact, she hasn't said much of anything for a while now." He put his balled-up ears on his hips, still using them like fists. "Is _everybody _in the world but mein a bad mood?" He pouted.

I was stunned. Renamon hadn't said anything.

"I know Guilmon is feeling bad about the way Rika yelled at you," Terriermon continued. "He'd really like to play ball with you again and--" he ducked his head shyly, "--I wouldn't mind joining in, too."

My relieved grin was very heartfelt. "Okay, Terriermon, let's go find Guilmon. I suddenly feel a lot better!"

--

Even if I'd blown it with Renamon, I was no worse off than before and Guilmon and Terriermon were both fun to hang around with. I still tended to avoid their tamers though. I did talk to them a couple of times and they were nice enough kids but I just felt uncomfortable around people.

_Life is good enough,_ I told myself, _but there was one thing I really need to do._

--

I stood on the rooftop across from Rika's home. I'd waited until the moon was up and made sure I was silhouetted against the sky. I didn't want to take any chance that Renamon might think I was sneaking up on the place. Just approaching this close could be taken as a threat, if she was in the mood to do so.

"Are you here to fight?" she asked from the darkness under the gate's roof. Damn, she was good. I hadn't even known she was there.

"No, I'm here to thank you."

"Thank me? Whatever for?" she asked as she stepped out into the moonlight. The sight of her still did twisty things to my insides.

"For not--" I had rehearsed this and _still _I was stumbling over my words. "For not telling everyone-- what I did."

"That would have been a betrayal of your trust." She leaped up to the rooftop and stood close to me.

"Trust." I said under my breath. That was a word I didn't have much experience with.

"And I suspect," Renamon continued, "that you didn't do anything to be ashamed of. Sometimes things just--" she hesitated, "--don't go well."

"Well, thank you, anyway." I stood there not knowing what to do with myself now that I had delivered my message. "I guess I should--"

"Come on," Renamon suddenly interrupted me and leapt to the next roof. "Follow me!" She danced across the rooftops, looking back at me. "Try to keep up!"

I didn't think. I just followed her. She ran and leapt across the neighborhoods like flowing gold in the moonlight. Each time she saw that I had followed her through a particularly tricky maneuver she increased her pace and made more difficult leaps. I managed not to lose her, but only just barely.

When we were halfway across the city she stopped and stood on the big stone arch above the entrance to a public garden.

I hopped up beside her. "That was fun!" I said enthusiastically, "It was like fighting but more-- I don't know-- better some how." I realized I was babbling and shut up.

Renamon was looking at me with an enigmatic expression. "Your turn to lead," she said finally.

"Okay," I hesitated, "But I really don't _want _to lose you."

She chuckled. "That's the game Coyomon. If you don't do your absolute best, I'll know." She pointed an imperious claw back the way we had come. "Now, go!"

I went.

We blazed across the city, turning and leaping and scaring the heck out of a couple of late-night walkers. I suddenly realized we were going to pass near my favorite cell tower and I shifted my course slightly. The move I had in mind was something I had practiced for combat but it would work just as well for this game of Hyper-Follow-the-Leader.

I leaped from the roof of the building next to the tower on a trajectory that would take me just past its edge. To Renamon it would look like I was aiming for the second level of the parking garage below. That's where the trick came in. As I passed the tower I curled my tail around into a hook shape and snagged the steel shaft. There was no way I could stop my momentum but I swung around the tower in a tight arc and flew off in an unexpected direction. Renamon soared right on past the tower and landed in the garage. By that time, I was crouched on the eaves of the bank building several floors up.

Renamon stood, looking around for me for several seconds until she sensed me above her. When she spotted me, she laughed. Really _laughed!_

She leaped up the side of the building to join me, eyes sparkling.

"Looks like you win the game, Coyomon. That was a good trick."

I smiled at her. "Do I get a prize?"

"What would you like?" She was still smiling.

I decided to press my luck. I let my smug grin drop away and said, sincerely, "More nights like this."

She became more serious, too. "Rika told me she didn't want me to go near you."

Suddenly my happy mood vanished. I felt like I'd been punched. "Oh," I said, "I guess--"

Renamon put one finger gently on my lips, stopping me. "I told her I wanted to." She shifted her hand to lightly touch my cheek. "I asked her to trust my judgment."

"You mean--"

"Yes, Coyomon, there _will _be other nights like this."

--


	3. Sparring Partners

WILD CARD

Chapter 3

Sparring Partners

--

That first night always held a special place in my heart but the ones that followed just got better and better. Our chases became full-out competitions with no technique left untried. We shadow-walked and energy-phased and ran and leaped with all our strength, speed and skill. Each time one of us won, it just became that much harder-- and that much more enjoyable for one of us to beat the other the next time.

It wasn't all just Follow-the-Leader. Over the nights we caught and destroyed several bio-emerging digimon, each of us taking turns attacking at first, and then figuring out how to work together simultaneously.

One night, after we had slammed a spider type into a red haze and shared its data, Renamon turned to me and said, "This feels almost too easy."

I made frantic shushing motions and whispered to her in mock urgency, "Don't say that! The next thing you know, we'll have three Ultimates popping up at the same time!" I loved to make her laugh but if I had known what the future held, I wouldn't have made that joke.

"Hmmm--" Her eyes narrowed in thought.

"We could try fighting them blindfolded." I offered.

Without shifting her gaze from the skyline she gave me a light backhanded whack on the arm.

"Ow!" I made a big show of rubbing my completely uninjured arm. "Meanie."

"What about sparring?" She asked tentatively.

"Like human martial artists do?"

"Yes. They fight full speed but only touch each other. We could do that, don't you think?"

"I suppose--" I said doubtfully. "But what about energy attacks?"

"We could use as little force as possible-- or aim to miss."

I wasn't sure it was a good idea but I could see she was eager to try it, so I agreed. "Let's start off on a small scale," I suggested. "I'm going to try to touch your nose, using just my right hand. You try and stop me. No footwork."

"Okay," she said and put her left arm behind her back.

I slowly extended my forefinger toward her nose. She deflected it with a tap. I dipped my hand under hers and tried an upward flick. She turned her head just enough to make me miss and then snapped her finger out at my own nose. I tapped her arm up with the back of my hand and feinted to one side, intending to duck under her block as she began to move. She parried with a little half-circle motion and came right back at me. We moved faster and faster while trying more and more complex moves. Soon, even though we had limited the scope of our ersatz combat we were both giving it everything we could, using a considerable amount of energy.

It was like playing supersonic chess.

Finally after long minutes of finger fencing without either of us being able to touch the other, I stepped back. We were both breathing rapidly and Renamon had that totally focused look on her face that has scared the hell out of so many people.

She blinked and came back to herself with a little shake of her head. "Wow," she said quietly.

"Yeah-- wow," I echoed her. "That was--" I began to be aware that my arm ached a bit from the force of some of Renamon's blocks.

"--intense." She finished for me as she squeezed and relaxed her fist, no doubt starting to feel the effects of our little combat on her own arm. "But promising, don't you think?"

I had to agree.

We took it slowly, over the course of many nights, until we were actually fully fighting at something approaching our top speeds. Our special attacks still packed a wallop, even using the minimum amount of energy possible, but if we limited ourselves to one special attack per fight, we could have a pretty good bout and still recover fairly quickly.

Since we couldn't depend on brute force to win, we quickly got cleverer about our attacks, creating complex combinations and using subtle feints. It was absolutely wonderful. I didn't know about Renamon, but _I_ was having the time of my life.

Then came the night that a really nasty Ultimate showed up.

It was an immense virus-type snake. I hate snakes. I've never met one that didn't use venom of some kind and with all that body and no limbs, it's really tough deciding where to kick them.

"Damn, it's big! You want to go get Rika?" I asked Renamon as we watched the digital field dissipate.

She thought about it for a moment before answering. "No. I think that I--" she glanced at me and corrected herself. "--that _we_ can handle it."

We weregood, damned good. I knew that. We probably _could_ handle it-- but venom is nasty and one good hit could be disastrous. "Okay," I said, as nonchalantly as I could, "I'll take the head, you take the tail, and I'll meet you in the middle!"

She gave me one of her cool, evaluating looks for a moment before nodding curtly and leaping away.

I wasn't going to mess around with Scaly McNastymon: My first move was to hit it with a Fang Flurry right in the face. It ducked its head to one side and managed to avoid taking my attack in its eyes as I had intended. The thing was a lot quicker than I'd hoped.

By that time, Renamon had started working her way up its tail. She solved my old snake-targeting problem with a very simple technique: She was kicking it _everywhere_. She'd slam it on one side and, as its head whipped around to strike at her, she'd hop over its back and let go with another ferocious kick on the other side. She leapt back and forth, kicking to the accompaniment of satisfying crunching noises. I don't know how many ribs that thing had but it looked like Renamon was determined to break each and every one.

McNastymon finally figured out it needed to rear up in order to be able to strike on either side of its body. But its sudden concern for its ribs made it expose its softer belly to me-- which is just what I had been waiting for. I went in kicking and punching with all my strength, feeling for any particularly weak spot. I guess I found one because, the next thing I knew, Scaly started thrashing around like it was being electrocuted.

I was knocked back in an ungraceful tumble and bounced to my feet just in time to see a wide-open maw full of dripping fangs lunging at me. Just as I was certain that I was going to get my fuzzy butt kicked, Renamon unleashed her Diamond Storm attack.

It may have been wildly foolish, but I stood frozen for an instant, struck by the beauty of the backlit spray of crystalline shards scattering off the back of McNastymon's head.

McNastymon was not half so appreciative. I can't say I blame it. Having the back of your head pin-cushioned with hundreds of razor-sharp fragments can't be a whole lot of fun. It twisted around in agony, completely forgetting about me while trying to get at the source of its pain. Of course, Renamon had flashed away, going back to her old game of rib smashing. The snake reared up high above her, its mouth gaping wide and its jaw muscles quivering. Not a good sign.

I wasn't about to give it enough time to hit Renamon with a special attack. Besides-- I don't like being ignored. I went _up_.

"Oh, Scaly!" I called out as I began falling from the apex of my leap. It started to turn back in my direction and its eyes went wide with surprise. Which was very convenient as it made it easier to slam my feet into one of them just as I triggered an Earth Splitter.

Now, I've already said how much I hate venom attacks, so you can pretty much figure out how much I enjoyed the _Flaming_ Venom that Scaly McNastymon started wildly spewing. Yeah-- poisonous napalm: About as much fun as a bucket full of ticks. Fortunately, with only one eye and a good chunk of its head missing, its targeting wasn't so great.

But I still got burned pretty badly. I hit the ground and rolled, trying to put out the flames and wipe most of the vile stuff from my fur. Waves of pain and nausea washed through me and I ended up in a scorched heap with just enough energy left to roll over when I saw the shadow of the snake's head fall across the ground in front of me.

Its mouth gaped above me and I was sure I was about to become a charbroiled snack when Scaly's head rocked from a terrific impact and twisted away from me. I struggled to my knees and caught the magnificent sight of Renamon, legs clamped around the thing's neck just behind its head, doing her best to punch her way through its skull. Her fists blurred and McNastymon bellowed out its death-cry and burst into red bits.

Renamon landed beside me and helped me to my feet.

"Hey," I said, gesturing weakly at the drifting fragments of data, "You're missing out on the feast."

"You need it more than I do, Coyomon," she told me as she half-carried me toward the evaporating cloud. I was too busy trying to remember how to make my legs work to argue with her.

Even with all the data I absorbed, it took me an entire day to fully recover.

--

"Boy, everybody sure is happy!" said Calumon.

I hadn't thought that digimon came any smaller or cuter than Terriermon until I'd met this little guy. He was so cute he actually creeped me out a bit.

"Yeah," Terriermon answered him, "better than when everyone was so gloomy."

"The world's a wonderful place," I told them as I did back handsprings along the top of the baseball field's fence. "Look at that beautiful sky! How could anybody be unhappy?"

They looked at the empty, perfectly ordinary sky and then at each other and Terriermon pointed one of his ears at his head and made little circles with it. I jumped off the fence with a twist and a roll and came to a stop right in front of them.

"Okay, maybe I'm crazy but--" I reached into my vest and pulled out a paper bag. "--I've got _cookies_!"

"Yay!" They chorused. Evidently sanity was of less concern to them than sugary snacks.

We all had our mouths full when Rika showed up. "Coyomon, I need to talk with you."

I swallowed while glancing around for Renamon. She didn't seem to be with Rika. "Of course, Rika," I said as I jumped to my feet and made a little bow. "Anything for such a lovely lady!"

"Stuff it, flea-bag," she snapped. "I want to talk--" she repeated while glancing at my friends,"--privately."

"Sure," I said amiably. She hadn't really meant anything by the 'flea-bag' crack; that was just the way she was. "Let's go up the path a ways." I waved goodbye to Calumon and Terriermon who were engrossed in an argument over the last cookie and strolled into the woods with Rika.

She didn't say anything until we were way out of earshot of the others-- and with those guys, that's a _long_ way.

"Okay," she said finally and I turned to face her. "I want to know what's going on between you and Renamon." With anyone else it wound have been an angry accusation but I had gotten more used to Rika's ways and I was fairly sure she was just very serious about this and not ready to bite my head off.

Fairly sure.

"Okay--" I said hesitantly, "Have you asked her?"

"Of course I have, dummy. Now I want to hear what you have to say."

"You know about the games and the fights?"

"Don't waste my time, Coyomon. I already know all about _what _you guys have been doing together. What I want to know is _why_. Why are you waiting outside my house every night? Why do you spend every moment you can with her? Don't you have other things to do?"

"Well, we're _friends_--" I began. Rika just stood there giving me the stink-eye. She didn't buy it. I was trapped. I either had to tell her an outright lie or the whole truth. What a horrible situation. I knelt down so that I was at eye level with her. "I-- I'm-- " I couldn't look her in the eye when I said it. I hung my head. "I'm in love with her, Rika."

I expected an exclamation or a sarcastic remark or-- something like that. What I got was silence. I looked up. Rika was just staring at me.

"You aren't human," she said slowly, as if I were a moron and she had to explain things very carefully to me. "You don't know what you're talking about. You're just _data_."

"Just data?" I snorted. "You're just _molecules_-- chemicals, minerals, and a lot of water held together in a bag of skin. Explain to me how love comes out of that mess!"

"Both of you are crazy," she muttered, shaking her head.

"You-- " Suddenly my brain caught up with my mouth. "Huh? What do you mean 'both'?"

"You and Renamon, dummy! All morning she's been blathering on about love and now you're doing it." She scowled ferociously at me. "I'm getting really tired of hearing all this nonsense."

"Uh--" I was in shock. "What did she say exactly?"

"Oh, brother!" Rika groaned and rolled her eyes. "Look, I don't care what you two do as long as Renamon comes when I call and does what I tell her. Just don't get in my way. You got that, flea-bag?"

I stood up straight and saluted her. "Yes, sir!"

Rika flicked her sunglasses open with one hand and slipped them on. "Wiseass."

--


	4. Making Sparks

WILD CARD

Chapter 4

Making Sparks

--

It was well after midnight when Renamon met me in our usual spot on the roof. I had been pacing up and down the ridgeline since sunset, unable to think of anything but what Rika had said to me. I told myself she had misunderstood-- that she had twisted whatever it was that Renamon had said to her. She must be mistaken-- I just couldn't let myself hope it was true.

Then came the soft tap of Renamon's paws touching down on the tiles. I turned, almost warily.

"Rika's finally asleep," she said. "She needed to vent a bit."

"Did I upset her? I didn't mean to," I said.

"Oh, I think _I_ did most of the upsetting. The thing she objected to most was when I told her I loved her," she sighed. "She's just not ready to hear it, I suppose."

"So, when she said you were talking about love this morning--" I trailed off, my mood starting to sink.

"I told her that I would always be her partner, that love isn't limited, that I could love her with all my heart and still--" she looked at me then, the moon reflecting in her eyes,"--love another."

She could have flicked me off the roof with the tip of her tail at that moment. (Okay, _big deal:_ Being who she was, she probably could have flicked an elephant off the roof with her tail but you know what I mean.) I finally found my voice. "I never said it because I didn't want to scare you off, but you must know that I love you, too?"

She grinned that sly and wicked grin of hers. "Subtlety isn't in your nature, Coyomon. I've known that for a long time now. Even before my admiration for you began turning into love, I think."

I reached out and gently touched the side of her muzzle. I felt awkward. We really weren't built for kissing, or any intimate physical love at all. But Renamon understood my gesture and moved closer to me, guiding my arm around her shoulders as she leaned her head against mine.

"Don't worry," she told me, "we'll figure it out as we go along."

--

Rika demanded more of Renamon's time over the next couple of weeks. I dealt with it as well as I could. I didn't want to do anything to alienate Rika and I knew she'd relax about us after a while but that didn't make it any easier. I felt incomplete when I was away from Renamon. I suspect I bored the heck out of the other digimon and their tamers talking about her whenever we met up. I even found myself bragging about her to a wild one I was fighting! I might even have let him go if he hadn't made a nasty crack about her. It's a shame that defeated digimon disintegrate. I wanted to stick his head on a flagpole with a note as a warning to anybody else who might have something bad to say about my Renamon.

The time we did spend together was wonderful beyond belief.

As far as kissing goes, people have it easy with their big lips, flat faces and tiny noses. After many false starts and embarrassed laughter we worked out a couple of good ways of kissing. It was amazing to hold such a powerful and vibrant creature in my arms and share such a tender gesture. Her lips and tongue were just as supple and graceful as the rest of her. The first night that it really came easily and naturally to us, we forgot all about chases or sparring or hunting and spent the whole night on the neighbor's rooftop. Only dawn separated us.

As far as snuggling goes, I've got to pity humans. Compared to us they seem so inflexible and weak-- not to mention their _total_ lack of tails. We tried just about every possible way we could devise of wrapping ourselves around each other. All were fairly pleasant, and some were just-- _right. _And some were even better.

While trying one of the more convoluted ways one night I commented, "I think we've invented digi-origami!" Renamon laughed and the feel of her belly muscles rippling against mine was so startlingly sensual that I gasped.

"Mn?" Renamon cocked her head questioningly.

I pulled her closer, pressing against her, a flex of muscles surging down my body like a wave through a thrown cable.

"Oh!" Her eyes went wide.

"Nice, huh?"

Her eyes narrowed down to slits and she began to move against me with all her fluid grace and power.

That was a good night.

--

I met a nasty little Rookie in the park on one of the nights Renamon stayed in with Rika. I remembered hearing some of the other digimon talking about him but I wasn't paying much attention to anything but my beloved Renamon those days, so I didn't even remember his name. He was sneaking up on couples kissing in the dark and terrifying them with little firecracker bursts of flame.

Pathetic. I don't know why someone hadn't downloaded his data long ago, but I knew that Renamon had met him and not killed him out of hand, so he must be worthwhile in some way.

I phased in while he was sneaking up on one particularly passionate couple. I had turned over several different smart remarks I could have made in my mind and finally decided just to give him a taste of his own medicine. I settled on the tree branch just behind him and when he felt it move under my weight he spun around to see a whole lot of very pointy teeth only a handbreadth from his face.

Okay, I'll admit I had a good laugh at his look of surprise in the instant before he took a pratfall out of the tree but even when I'm being a Good Guy, I've got to have a little fun, don't I?

I jumped down and pinned him to the ground before he could get up. Without his hands free to cast his fire attack and with his short little legs there was nothing he could do. Well-- he could curse at me. He sure did a lot of _that_.

"Shut up and listen to me, you little twerp," I snapped. "The only reason I don't tear you to pieces and download your data right now is that I don't think Renamon would like it if I did."

His expression changed to surprise and then a smirk and he opened his mouth to say something. I bared my teeth and stuck my muzzle right in his face, growling, "And if you say one smart-mouthed thing about her, I'll chew on your eyes while beating you to a pulp with your own tail!"

The way he stiffened and eyes went wide, I knew he believed me. Smart guy.

He mumbled something about not meaning any harm and that Renamon was very nice and that he liked her very much and blah, blah, blah. I let him up and he fled. I half expected him to fling a few fireballs at my back from a safe distance but it turned out he wasn't a complete fool.

Amazingly, the couple on the bench was still there. There were so engrossed in each other they hadn't noticed the tussle going on behind them. I thought back to my last night with Renamon and completely understood. Besides, with those tiny little human ears it's a wonder they ever hear _anything_.

I was just about to go when the couple got up from the bench and climbed over the little stone wall that separated the path from the bushes.

_Now, what can they possibly be up to?_ I asked myself and leaped back up into the tree in order to be able to see them better.

They ducked behind some large bushes and started shedding their clothes. That was odd. It was a cold night and they didn't have any fur to keep them warm. (Another reason I pitied people.) They started kissing again and began stroking each other's bodies. Then--

Okay, you've got to be thinking I was an idiot not to know what was going on right away but it's not something that digimon do. For us it's just not physically _possible_. (Unless there are some really unusual modify cards floating around that I don't know about.) It just didn't occur to me what they were doing until they actually began having sex.

_Wow_, I thought, _so that's how they do it._ It looked a bit awkward and messy but maybe that was just because humans are awkward and messy in general. I was just deciding that Renamon and I probably got more pleasure out of our combination of hugs, caressing, grooming and massage when the girl started gasping and moaning. It certainly seemed like she was enjoying herself quite a _lot_ all of a sudden. I paid closer attention and was shocked when she arched her back and cried out, digging her fingers into the loamy earth.

I'd seen that exact same body language many times before.

The couple eventually departed but I remained up in the tree, deep in thought. After a couple of hours I pretty much had my plan all worked out. If I could pull it off, Renamon was in for one hell of a surprise.

--

Two nights later Renamon and I had a long game of Don't-Drop-the-Baby while leaping around the skyline. The basic idea was to toss it back and forth to each other as we jumped and climbed the buildings, trying to make each other stumble or drop it. Renamon won by hitting me in the back of the head with the damned thing, causing me to flub my landing on a balcony and turn too late to catch it before it plummeted seven stories.

We were both leaning over the railing, watching, as it hit the pavement and burst.

"Such a terrible waste of a good bag of rice," Renamon said with mock sadness as she shook her head. "You should never throw away food, Coyomon."

"It was only Texmati," I sniffed, "And besides, _you're_ the one who threw it-- and at my _back!_ Is that fair?"

"Show me the rule that says I can't," she huffed.

I made a show of reaching under my vest and she groaned and rolled her eyes. "You don't actually have a list of rules in there do you?"

"Nope," I said, "Not rules, but it _is_ a list." I pulled out a little notebook and pretended to write something in it.

"Of what?"

"The number of times you've cheated," I said archly, flipping through several pages and pretending to count. "Wow, that's a lot! I think I'm a good influence on you."

"Clown!" she growled at me as she swung her tail around at my feet.

I hopped over it and up onto the balcony railing. "Cheater!" I shot back.

She made a grab for my ankle and I leapt up to the next window above. "Coward," she spat, trying hard not to smile, and jumped after me.

"Bully!" I cried as I dug my claws into the wall and hurled myself upwards.

We reached the penthouse deck just as it was Renamon's turn to insult me, so I pointed to the dark windows and, even though I knew nobody was home, made a shushing motion to indicate she shouldn't wake the occupants. She made a frustrated face and then settled for sticking out her tongue at me.

"Don't point that thing at me unless you intend to use it, foxy." I admonished her.

It didn't matter how many times I'd seen it before, that wicked grin of hers still made me go all wobbly in the knees.

"We'd better go somewhere private, then'" she purred, "I never make idle threats."

"Oh, here is just fine," I told her, "The owners won't be home all this week. I checked."

"What?" Her eyes narrowed. "How did you-- what are you up to, you evil schemer?"

"I just wanted to have a nice place to be alone with you for a while," I said as I swept an arm out, indicating the lovely little roof garden that surrounded the deck.

She looked around and smiled. "It _is_ beautiful, Coyomon."

I walked over to her and slipped an arm around her waist. As we kissed, she wrapped her tail around us both and brushed it up and down.

We kissed and stroked each other with ever increasing ardor. I twisted my tongue around hers as my hands slid down over her magnificent butt and squeezed and kneaded her taut muscles.

She broke off our kiss for a moment and said, "You're certainly aggressive tonight!"

"I have something special in mind." I breathed.

She slipped her massive paws down over my rump and pulled me against her, pressing us belly to belly with a considerable amount of force and rolled the muscles of her torso like a belly dancer. "Oh, good," she whispered into my ear and gave it a little nip. "I wouldn't want this night to be _ordinary_."

The feel of her moving against me made my whole body tingle. I raked my claws through the fur of her back gasping, "Oh-- yeah-- I'd hate that. Ol' _ordinary_ Renamon--" She made her thigh muscles ripple against mine and I couldn't remember what I had been going to say.

She buried her muzzle in my ruff and gave me half a dozen love-bites, working down from my jaw to the base of my throat, which drove me absolutely wild. I threw her down onto the deck and pounced on top of her. It was a good measure of how much we had come to trust each other that we could make such aggressive moves without triggering our fighting instincts.

I ran my hand through the short, silky fur of her belly, my fingers tracing the firm lines of definition hidden beneath. As my hand slid lower, I gathered the energy at my core and began guiding it outward, directing it through my fingers and palm. Renamon gasped and her eyes snapped open as her fur crackled and sparked with static discharge.

I gazed directly into her eyes and breathed, "For _you_, Renachan," and I _pushed_. My energy flow surged and pulsed, carrying with it essence of my being: My data. Not the swirling, tenuous intake of downloading a defeated foe but a direct, focused, and concentrated _upload_ of strength and life. A flare of crimson light blazed under my hand and Renamon's body rose into a quivering arch, her head snapped back and rolled from side to side, her fearsome claws tore the deck beneath them into splinters and her tail thrashed like a dying snake. Her lips peeled back from her gleaming fangs and the scream that burst from her throat was most terrifying and bestial noise I had ever heard her make.

I fell back and there was a sharp _snap_ and the smell of ozone as my hand came away from Renamon's belly. Her muscles relaxed and she slumped flat on the deck, moaning and quivering. I felt weak and dizzy from the loss of data and the horrible thought that I had hurt her while trying to give her pleasure began to creep into my mind. I reached out and cupped her cheek.

"Renamon?" I asked worriedly, "Lover, are you alright?"

She didn't open her eyes but grabbed my hand and pulled it to her mouth, kissing the palm, and then pulled me down on top of her and folded me into a tight embrace. She didn't say anything for a long time, just kept making happy little moans that I could feel vibrating through her body while she caressed and kissed me. An occasional little muscle spasm would make her belly briefly snap into tautness against mine.

Finally she opened her eyes. That dread and fearsome creature had an expression on her face that was unbelievably tender and loving. "I'm so glad I didn't kill you when we first met." She whispered.

It was the sweetest thing anyone had ever said to me.

--


	5. Bad Times

--

--

Chapter 5

Bad Times

--

For a while, everything was perfect. Our sparring made both of us more canny and dangerous fighters and our games became more inventive and difficult.

The nights when I had concentrated enough energy and data for lovemaking were paradise. I learned to moderate, guide and control the flow, and spent many wonderful hours discovering what things pleased my Renamon the most.

Renamon seemed to be very happy, too. She even relaxed her aloof attitude enough to join in a couple of Hide-and-Seek and Scavenger-Hunt type games with Guilmon, Terriermon, and Calumon. Guilmon actually did really well at a couple of them. That little red dragon had one heck of a sense of smell.

I kept hidden while watching Renamon and Rika battle wild ones. I knew Rika would be upset or distracted if she saw me but I couldn't stay away. I felt an inordinate amount of happiness when Renamon used one of the techniques we'd developed together and I just loved seeing my beautiful fox kick some digital ass.

A surprising thing happened during one fight. It was the morning after Renamon and I had had a particularly wild session on top of my cell tower. (It had been truly intense-- but had also knocked out service to several thousand phones.) Renamon unleashed her Diamond Storm attack as an opener against the Creepy Nasty she was fighting. Usually, she liked to get in a few dozen good punches and kicks before going all flashy on her opponent but this thing looked like a cross between a spider and a squid and I think she didn't want her paws to get all covered with ooze. Anyway, instead of the usual stream of arrowhead-shaped bits of energy, she threw off a cloud of slightly curved particles that spun as they cut through her foe. Sort of like my Fang Flurry attack.

Okay, a _lot_ like my Fang Flurry.

Rika watched Creepy explode into bits and started demanding an explanation from Renamon before she had even finished downloading the thing's data.

"What the heck was _that_?"

"An easy kill." Renamon said calmly. "If I'd have known it was going to be that weak, I would have toyed with it a bit more."

"You know what I mean! Your Diamond Storm was different. What's happened?"

"I'm not sure," Renamon wasn't going to lie to her but she _could_ avoid sharing all her suspicions. "I'm getting stronger every day-- with each digimon I download-- maybe that has something to do with it."

"Maybe," Rika admitted, still not happy with the change even though it had obviously made Renamon's attack much more powerful.

--

That night we talked it over.

"It looks like you're transferring more than just energy and data when we make love" Renamon said as we snuggled together on top of my tower.

"Yeah," I said as I ran a claw down through her ruff, pushing just enough energy through it to make her fur crackle and spark a bit in its wake.

"Stop that!" She swatted my hand. "You'll have that poor repair man up here again. Besides," she said leaning over just enough to touch noses, "it's distracting."

"Okay," I sighed, "I don't see how it could be a bad thing. I get awfully weak just afterwards but my strength comes back soon enough-- even quicker if I go pop a couple of wild Rookies."

"You're awful!" She said.

"What?"

"You make it sound like they're energy drinks or something!"

"Eewww!" I grimaced, "Have you ever tasted one of those things? Besides, there isn't any _actual_ energy in them-- it's all sugar and caffeine and junk like that. Data is much better."

"Can't you ever be serious?"

"Sure--" I said reaching out again with my claw.

She stood up suddenly.

_Uh-oh_, I thought, _what did I do?_

"Well," she said abruptly, "If you're going to be like that, I think we'll just have to go to the park." She reached down and grabbed me by my arm and yanked me off the tower.

--

Of course, such bliss couldn't last-- and all the bad things seemed to come one after the other.

The first thing was Rika's frustration boiling over.

I triggered the explosion by helping out with a particularly nasty wild one that Rika and Renamon had tackled. Dough Cookiemon, or something stupid like that. The damned thing had two poisonous attacks and it had hit Renamon badly a couple of times. What was I supposed to do, stand by and let her take all the risks? I even let her download all the thing's data but that didn't mollify Rika.

"Why did you interfere?" She demanded.

"I was just trying to help." I said, bewildered at her anger.

"Listen, flea-bag," she snarled at me, "You stay out of our fights, you got that?"

"I understand. I won't do it again," I said coolly and phased away before she could say anything else.

--

That night Renamon was waiting for me when I got to our meeting place. That was unusual; I almost always arrived first. She sat with her back against the break in the roofline with her arms crossed over her chest, glaring out at the world.

I didn't say anything but sat down near her and lifted one of her long, powerful legs onto my lap. She stiffened a tiny bit and scowled when I did so, but let me continue. I massaged the pads of her paws, stretching and kneading them in just the way she liked. She closed her eyes and relaxed a little bit and I worked my way up her leg, alternately massaging, stroking and grooming her fur with my claws.

She made happy little noises deep in her throat and shifted over next to me and wrapped her arms around me. "You're so good to me," she quietly murmured into my chest fur.

"No more than you deserve, Renachan," I whispered back as I ran my fingers though her silky ruff. "Do you want to talk about it?"

She lifted her head and looked up into my eyes with a pained expression. "She can't understand why I haven't digivolved yet."

It made me angry to see how much Rika could hurt her but I said nothing.

"She thinks that if I _have_ to try harder, it might happen. That's why she was so upset when you joined the fight today." She laid her head on my chest again and sighed. "I only want to make her happy but somehow I just can't seem to do it."

"Is there any way I can help?"

"I don't know. When I first came to Rika, all I wanted was power. I wanted to become as strong and fearsome as possible and I yearned to make my first digivolution. But now, I think I may be holding back somehow-- for some reason." She shook her head. "I feel so bad about it."

I kissed her on her cheek and gently nibbled around the base of her ears until she sighed and some of the tension went out of her muscles.

She combed her claws through my chest fur and we just sat silently together for a long while.

"I've been holding back with you, too" she said eventually.

_What?_ I took a moment to think before I replied, "Every moment I spend with you is a joy, " I told her, "Whatever you--"

"No," she interrupted, sitting up and placing her hand to my cheek. "You've literally given yourself to me-- the change in my attacks prove that. And I've never given back. Haven't you wondered why?"

I _had_ wondered but I was so happy anyway that it didn't seem to matter.

"I would never want you to do something you're not comfortable with--" I began.

"I want to!" she cried, "I want to make you feel just as wonderful as you make me feel!"

"You do!" I protested.

"Stop it!" she snapped as she pushed away from me. "There's something wrong with me. I know it."

"What?" I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "You are the most perfect creature in the world! How many other Rookies can kick the crap out of an Ultimate without even breathing hard? Who else can--" I stopped as a horrible suspicion formed in my mind.

Renamon turned away from me, her arms crossed and her head down.

"Is it _her?_" I asked. "Did _she_ put this nonsense into your head?" I reached out to touch her shoulder but she pulled away from me.

"Damnit!" I yelled as I stood, shaking with anger. "Don't you see what's going on? Rika's not striving for excellence, she's just greedy! She has the most powerful digimon I've ever met for a partner and all she can think about more, more, _more!_"

I turned to face Rika's house, my eyes narrowing to slits and my lips wrinkling back from my fangs. "It's not you! _She's_ the one who's got something wrong with her." I growled. My fingers flexed into sharp, hooked curves and my hackles rose in rage. "If she wasn't around to poison your mind--"

I never finished my sentence. White-hot pain flared in my head and I slammed into the roof, scattering broken tiles everywhere. I rolled but not quickly enough to avoid the crushing kick that hit me in the chest and cartwheeled me into the street below.

I leapt up into a fighting stance as Renamon landed in front of me, sapphire eyes blazing.

"Don't you _ever_ threaten her!" she hissed through bared fangs.

We crouched, facing each other for only a moment before I dropped my hands and straightened up, raising my chin just enough to give the barest hint of exposing my throat. Renamon hesitated, her fists flexing uncertainly.

"I would never harm her, no matter how angry she makes me. You ought to know that."

"I--" she began.

I took two steps backwards into shadow and was gone.

--


	6. Ups and Downs

Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Ups and Downs

--

The next few days were torture. I alternated between hating Rika for being so ruthless, hating myself for being so stupid, and hating Renamon for being so blind.

No, of course I didn't _really_ hate her. It was frustration and bewilderment and a lot of other churning emotions that kicked me all over the emotional landscape. But not hate. Never that.

I tried to keep busy and pretend I wasn't hurting but it didn't work very well. I was in a foul, black mood, and one unfortunate little guy walked right into it.

I caught Impmon harassing couples in the park again and Renamon's comment about energy drinks came to mind. I considered him carefully as he writhed and cursed in my grip. "I wonder--" I said as I tilted my head to one side, considering, "If I twisted your head off-- could I drink your data out of your neck?"

He went stiff and his eyes went wide. "You-- you're crazy!" he blurted.

I peeled my lips back from my fangs ever so slowly and reached for his face with my free hand. "You have no idea--"

"Hey Coyomon!" came a cheerful voice from behind me. "What'cha doin'?"

I turned to see Guilmon gazing inquisitively up at me.

"Oh hi, little buddy!" I said cheerfully. "I'm just playing a game with Impmon here."

"No he's not! He's-- _urk_." Impmon's words ended in a gurgle as my fist tightened around his windpipe.

"Oh-- okay," said Guilmon doubtfully. "I don't like the games Impmon plays."

"Yeah," I nodded understandingly, "I don't think he likes my sort of game either." Impmon was going bright red in the face and making strangling noises. I tossed him over my shoulder into a treetop. "Why don't you and I go play a game?"

"Okay!" said Guilmon, brightening up. And then as he heard what Impmon was shouting from the trees, "I think he really, _really_ didn't like your game."

"I guess not," I said. "By the way, those words he's using-- they're not very nice. You should never say things like that."

"Okay, Coyomon, I won't."

--

Terriermon showed up when we got to the playground and joined us as we ran around doing something silly with sticks and rocks-- I forget what exactly.

I declared all of us equal winners and we sat down to eat the cream puffs I handed out as prizes. Calumon floated down out of the trees right about then. I swear, that guy has inbuilt pastry radar or something. I let him have mine.

"Coyomon--" Guilmon began hesitantly.

"Yeah, little buddy?"

"Why are you so sad?"

"Uh--" I said, displaying my brilliant wit, "Sad? Me? I'm not--"

"Oh come on!" said Terriermon around a mouthful of creampuff, "You're one unhappy puppy."

"Is it that obvious?" I asked looking back and forth between them. They nodded.

"He's sad?" asked Calumon.

"Obvious to _most_ of us," Terriermon snorted. He turned to me. "So?"

I sighed. "I made a huge mistake. Renamon doesn't trust me anymore. And now I'm worried that Rika is pushing her too hard and might--" I really didn't want to say it out loud but I forced myself,"--might get her killed."

"So help her out," Terriermon told me.

"Weren't you listening? She doesn't _trust_ me! And Rika has told me to stay away from them."

"So?" Terriermon had put his ears on his hips again. "You're gonna let Renamon get clobbered because she has some doubts about you and Ms. Digimon Queen made funny faces at you? You need a tamer's permission to protect somebody you love?"

I went from shocked to angry to amazed in the space of five seconds.

I gave him a _look_ out of the corner of my eye. "You're a lot brighter than you let on, buddy."

"Yup," he said without the slightest hint of modesty.

"I owe you one." I said as I phased out, heading for Rika's place.

--

I found a nice rooftop to settle on, not too far but not too close either. I could just feel Renamon's presence at the edge of my senses. That meant that she would know I was nearby, too. Couldn't be helped. I folded shadow around me and settled in to wait.

--

The next night a damned big dragon type showed up and went on a rampage. Renamon, Terriermon and Guilmon were all there along with their tamers and I was itching to join in the fun. But I just couldn't risk a bad reaction from Renamon. I waited in the shadows.

Takato sent Guilmon after the thing all by himself. I couldn't believe it. All the others were just standing around. At one point it looked so bad for my little buddy I almost jumped in but there was a sudden flare of a digital vortex and Guilmon was no longer my _little_ buddy. He was enormous. He kicked the living crap out of the other dragon and absorbed his data.

When Guilmon-- or _Growlmon_ as his new form was named-- looked down at Takato right after the fight I thought the tamer was going to pee in his pants. I was grinning from ear to ear.

_Good for you, buddy!_ I thought. _Don't let him take you for granted!_

--

It was less than a day later when Rika and Renamon got into serious trouble. They should have known to be cautious when Rika's digivice couldn't pull up any stats on the Damned Thing but all Rika was interested in was another, tougher fight.

My muscles twitched and jumped with the impulse to join in while I watched Renamon fight. She was just as fast and tough as always but the Damned Thing was seemingly impervious. Rika slashed mod after mod and nothing had any noticeable effect. Renamon took hit after hit and I could see she was becoming exhausted.

"C'mon--" I heard Rita curse under her breath as she slashed another modify card, "--_digivolve!_"

The Twin Sickle attack just bounced off the Dammed Thing's hide. It lashed out and it hit Renamon with a Spike Blast that slammed her down into the pavement of the alley, tearing up huge chunks of asphalt.

"Renamon, get up!" called Rika. She didn't realize how badly her partner was hurt.

But I did.

The dust and rubble from her impact was still settling when Renamon started to break up. She wavered out of focus and the edges of her body started to pixilate. I had waited too long to interfere-- she was dying. I raced to her from my hiding place as Rika finally began to suspect what was happening.

"Renamon?" I'd never heard Rika sound so much like a little girl before.

I did the only thing I could think of: I plunged my claws into the fur of Renamon's torso and _pushed_.

Rika jerked back from the flare and crackle of my energy flowing into her partner and screamed, "What are you doing to her?"

I didn't answer. I was busy. Thankfully, the Damned Thing was fascinated by what was happening and stood there staring rather than trying to stomp all of us into oblivion. There was a series of gunshot-loud cracks and a stinging waft of ozone when I fell over, losing my connection to Renamon. Rika darted in and threw her arms around her partner, sobbing.

My vision got a bit dark around the edges but I could see that Renamon's outline had sharpened and solidified again even though she still wasn't moving. I also saw the Damned Thing lift a razor-edged tentacle to crush Rika into the ground.

"Hey, ugly!" I yelled as I leapt to my feet and blasted it with a Fang Flurry-- okay, okay, so that's _not_ what I did-- that's what I had _intended_ to do. What I actually did was mumble something like "Heugg--" and flung a pitiful few low-energy particles at the upraised tentacle. But it was enough. The Damned Thing gave me its undivided attention.

Oh joy.

I moved as fast as I could, hoping to dodge its attacks long enough to allow Renamon and Rika to get away. But Rika was just sitting there holding Renamon and crying. "Run, damnit!" I yelled at her.

I felt like I was moving through thick mud. I dodged away from a tentacle attack just an instant too late and lost a toe to its knife edge. I ignored the pain and kept moving. The next swipe took off the very tip of my tail and I finally understood: I wasn't dodging anywhere _near_ fast enough-- the Damned Thing was playing with me. It was going to chop me up a centimeter at a time.

I turned to Rika one last time to scream at her to get away and saw the whirling energy vortex that was forming around Renamon.

She was digivolving.

But I didn't get to see it happen because my world dissolved into an explosion of pain and disorientation. The next thing I knew I was half embedded in a wall with brick dust swirling around me.

When some of the dust cleared and I could focus my eyes well enough, I saw a majestic nine-tailed kitsune frying the crap out of the Damned Thing. I squinted at the gouts of ghost fire burning holes in its flailing tentacles. I could swear I saw little grinning faces on them.

I blacked out again for a bit and when I came to, the Damned Thing was history and Rika was standing with the kitsune, at the other end of the alley, talking quietly. _I guess I should give them some privacy,_ I thought and started to get up and walk away. Bad plan. I sat down again. _I'll just fold my ears back and pretend I'm not here._

Rika climbed onto the kitsune's back and they blurred up into the sky. _So Rika's finally gotten what she wanted, _I thought. _And it seems, from what I couldn't help overhearing, that she's also realized just how much Renamon means to her. Good._

I tried to get up again and then decided that the nice little heap of bricks was a good enough place to curl up and get some rest. I tried folding shadow around me but couldn't summon the strength. _Oh well,_ I thought, _I'll sleep until dawn. I should have enough energy back by then to limp away from here._

I'd barely closed my eyes when a grating voice broke the silence.

"Gee, _pal_, you don't look so good."

"Oh," I mumbled, opening one eye, "it's the little energy drink."

"Huh?"

"Go away, Impmon."

"Hmm--" He put one hand to his chin and pretended to consider it. "No, I don't think so, dog-boy."

I opened my other eye and lifted my lip at him. "It wasn't a suggestion."

"Ooh! Big bad coyote gonna beat me up?" he sneered, wiggling his fingers at me. "I just happened be up on that building watching you get the stuffing kicked out of you and I don't think you've got enough energy left to swat a fly."

"Buzz off."

"Oh, real clever, dog-boy." Impmon flicked one finger straight up and a little ball of red flame appeared, hovering over its tip. "Let's find out for sure."

I ducked my head as it hit, saving my eyes, but loosing the fur on the left side of my face. The pain gave me a momentary surge of energy and I tried to leap at him but stumbled over the loose bricks and collapsed on the pavement. I just couldn't seem to get my legs working.

"Aww--" mocked Impmon, "Puppy fall down, go boom!" And he laughed uproariously at his pathetic joke.

I crawled toward him, making a pitiful grab at one ankle.

"Naughty boy," he smirked as he stepped backwards out of my reach and flung another fireball that burned a trench along my side.

I tried to snarl a curse at him but the smoke from my burning fur set me to coughing.

"Well, it's been fun, dog-boy," Impmon said as he held up his hands and lifted one finger after another until there were eight hovering balls of fire dancing in the air. "But I think it's time to _put you down!_"

I lifted my head and looked him in the eye. It was an awfully stupid way to end my existence but I wasn't going to go out cringing. "Do your worst, _twerp!_"

He cocked his arms back to throw-- and burst into a blue ball of fire that ran, shrieking, down the alley, followed by a couple of grinning blue flames that nipped at his heels.

_That's odd_, I thought.

"Are you alright, Coyomon?" Oh, that sweet, sweet voice! However much she had changed, that was still the same.

I looked up at the magnificent beast standing over me and tried to sound nonchalant. "Well hello there, gorgeous!"

"Can you climb onto my back?" she asked, evidently unaffected by my attempt to be suave and seductive. Maybe the half of my head that was still smoldering spoiled the effect.

"Uh--" I wobbled to my hands and knees. "Sure-- but I'm gonna get your nice fur all dirty."

"Do you have to be exasperating even when you're half-dead?"

"Hey," I said as I flopped down across her shoulders, "it's a coyote thing. Y'know-- trickster spirit-- like someone else I know." I patted her flank.

"Hmph," she snorted as she leapt into the sky. "Eastern tricksters tend more toward slyness and cunning than outright irritation."

"Yeah-- the way you lit up Impmon-- _very_ sly."

I could _feel_ her grin. "_I_ though so," she purred.


	7. Back in the Groove

Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Back in the Groove

--

I woke up when we landed in a clearing in the park and I slid to the ground. _Funny_, I thought, _I don't remember passing out again. _This seemed inordinately funny to me and I chuckled to myself. I looked up at that beautiful fox face and suddenly remembered something I had to say.

"Renamon, I'm sorry--" I began.

"Hush," she said, "You've got nothing to be sorry about."

"No, I need to tell you--"

She shut me up by kissing me long and lovingly. "I know-- and it's 'Kyuubimon' at the moment," she said with no little touch of smugness in her voice.

"Oh yeah," I said, "I _thought_ you had more tails than usual."

Kyuubimon scanned the area, making sure it was safe and then sat down beside me. "Your poor face!" she said, leaning over me.

"Aw, it's not so bad."

She sighed. "How can you be such a macho twit without the aid of testosterone?"

"High voltage, baby!" I grinned-- which made my face hurt.

She sighed and put a paw on my chest and pushed me to the ground. "Just lie still for a minute." I thought for a second she was going to kiss me again but she ran her tongue along the burned side of my face. It didn't hurt at all. In fact, it felt really _nice_. There was a faint smell of ozone and tiny sparkling lights reflected in her eyes.

"What the heck are you doing?" I asked.

"Lie still," she said and continued licking my face. After a moment she turned her attention to the charred gash in my side. I lifted a hand to my face and found it whole and unburned.

"What did you do?" I asked wonderingly.

"Just something I learned from a clever coyote," she said, lifting her head from my side, her muzzle trailing tiny sparks. "_I'm_ just a bit more sly and cunning in its application." She dipped her head over my paw and I suddenly had my toe back.

"That's so _cool! _" I grinned like an idiot. "Can you lick my tail, too?"

I had no idea that a fox's face could be so expressive.

"Um-- I mean-- just the _tip!_ I seem to have misplaced it."

Kyuubimon healed my tail and then lay down next to me, curling her mass of tails around us both.

"I want you to know something, Coyomon." She said softly to me.

"Please, Ren-- ah, Kyuubimon. If I can't give you an apology, I don't want to hear one from you. You were right to smack me around: I was completely out of line."

"It's not that," she said snuggling closer to me, "though I regret doing it. I should have had more trust in you but I just acted on instinct. No-- what I need you to know is that I didn't know you were at the fight tonight. I don't remember anything between the time I hit the ground and I woke up like this." She rippled her nine tails for emphasis.

"Okay--" I said, a bit puzzled. I ran my hand along her forepaw. It seemed to be covered with a blend of fur and cool ghost fire.

"Don't you see?" she said earnestly, "I never would have left to take Rika home if I'd have known you were there, hurt and vulnerable. I had no idea what had happened until I dropped her off and she started going on about how you had 'attacked' me! As soon as I figured it out, I came right back."

"You had to take care of Rika first, that's only right."

"Oh, _screw_ the little bitch!" Kyuubimon snarled, "She could have _walked_ home. I pity the mugger who'd be stupid enough to get in her way!"

I snapped my gaping mouth shut and put a finger in one ear and wiggled it around vigorously. "_What_ did you say? I think I must be going deaf or something."

She bit down on my ear and tugged playfully. "Your hearing is just fine, Coyomon. Yes, I love her-- but I'm not blind. She can be an appalling brat at times."

"Uh-- yeah--," I began.

"But only _I_ get to say so, you evil coyote. So keep a civil tongue in your head!"

I chuckled. "Yes, mam!"

Kyuubimon's expression softened and became more serious. "How are you feeling?"

"A lot better now, thanks to you." I considered. "I'm still pretty weak but a day's rest should fix that."

Kyuubimon nuzzled her head against mine and her big, powerful body shook with tiny tremors.

"Hey, what's wrong, lover?" I asked, stroking her shoulders.

She didn't lift her head from my ruff but said quietly, "I came _so_ close to loosing you. I'm never going to let that happen again." She shifted to press even more of herself against me and my fur started to stand on end.

I started to ask her what she was doing but she closed my mouth with a kiss-- a long, passionate kiss. Kyuubimon's softness surrounded me and a scintillating light seemed to be soaking into me, filling me with strength. It felt incredibly good. I kissed her back and stroked her strange new body, tracing the powerful curves of her long torso.

She broke off her kiss to lift her head so that she could gaze directly down into my eyes. "I love you, Coyomon."

"I love--" I began and then gasped as the pulses of energy surged into me. Kyuubimon poured her energy and data into me from every direction, each of her tails stroking lines of blue, fiery energy along my body. I cried out and writhed in the soft, merciless grip of my lover.

When the last wisps of blue ghost fire had flickered out and I could breath again, I gasped, "Holy Tesla! Is that what it's like for you? I had no idea!"

Renamon kissed me and said, "I don't know for sure-- but you looked like you enjoyed it quite a lot."

"Boy, did I _ever!_ Hey, you're back to just one tail."

"That took a lot of energy. I wasn't going to be able to keep my digivolved body much longer anyway. Disappointed?"

"Not at all," I said, running an appreciative hand down her lean flank and over the sweet curves of her hips and rump. "Quality is just as good as quantity for me." I gave her butt a little squeeze. "And, boy, is that _quality! _"

"You're terrible!" She said as she twirled a claw in my ruff, "I don't know why I put up with you."

I pretended to think hard for a moment. "Animal magnetism?"

--


	8. Trouble

--

--

Chapter 8

Trouble

--

On most days when Takato was in school I usually dropped by to visit Guilmon. He got bored and sometimes lonely when he didn't see his tamer for a long while. Sometimes Terriermon joined us when he could escape from Henry's little sister. (Evidently she thought he was a plush toy and he had to play along-- _that_ must have been a special kind of hell.) He wasn't there on that day, though.

"Heya, little buddy!" I greeted Guilmon as I swung down out of the trees and plopped down beside him.

"Hi, Coyomon!"

"I though up a new ball game for us to try." I told him. I'd noticed that his long claws looked a lot like a Jai alai basket when he held them a certain way. It could be a lot of fun-- and maybe just a _bit_ dangerous. Jai alai balls could travel at over 300 kilometers per hour when _humans_ flung them. "Or we could have some snacks first. I brought some cinnamon rolls."

"Oh! Wait, wait!" he cried out as he turned and rummaged around in the tunnel he'd dug in the back wall of his hideout.

"Here," he said to me turning back and offering me a little roll. "It's got peanut butter inside. It's my favorite."

"Thanks, Guilmon." I took the roll from him and passed him one of mine. "That was really nice of you to think of saving one for me."

"Well, you're always bringing _me_ nice things."

"That's because you're a good guy, little buddy!" I bit into my roll. "Mmmm!" Peanut butter is a bit gummy for my tastes but I was going to act like it was the best thing I'd ever eaten. "Why _are_ you so nice anyway?" It was one of those stupid, flippant things I was always saying. I never expected to get an answer.

"I think it's because Takato made me that way."

I damn near choked on my roll. "What?"

"When he drew me." Guilmon explained, spraying little fragments of cinnamon roll. "He made me red with black marks and gave me these claws," he wiggled them just in case I might have thought he was talking about some _other_ claws, "and so I guess he made me nice, too."

I sat there, frozen, with the half-eaten roll in my hand for so long that Guilmon got concerned.

"Are you okay, Coyomon?"

"Yeah--" I said slowly, "yeah-- I'm fine Guilmon. It's just that-- I thought I was the only one."

"Huh?"

"Danny--" I had to stop for a second and swallow. I hadn't said his name in over three years. "--my tamer-- his name was Danny. He was a really good artist. He had a sketchbook he always carried around with him. When he came over here as an exchange student he went crazy about digimon-- the _game_, that is-- and he designed his own digimon." I was still having trouble swallowing. "That was me. I just _woke up_ one day and he found me."

"Oh." Guilmon thought about it for a second. "So we're the same!"

I had to laugh. "Yeah, little buddy, we're about as much alike as a little red dragon and a two-legged talking coyote can get!"

He puzzled over that one for a bit and gave up. "That's good, right?"

"Yepyep! It's great!" I said, tossing the last bit of roll down my throat. "Why don't we--"

"Coyomon?" came a voice from the doorway.

I could hear the distress in her voice and I was on my feet in an instant. "What's wrong, Renamon?"

She hesitated and I knew she didn't want to discuss whatever was bothering her in front of Guilmon.

"I'm sorry, little buddy, but I've got to go," I told him.

"Oh--" he said uncertainly,"--okay, Coyomon."

I walked silently beside Renamon as she moved deeper into the trees, her arms wrapped tightly around her chest.

She finally sat against the trunk of a big chestnut tree. I lowered myself beside her and put an arm around her shoulders and she leaned into me and sighed.

I just held her and stroked her for a while. "Tell me about it?" I asked finally.

"Rika and I fought," she said. I assumed it was Rika who had done most of the fighting. I'd never heard Renamon even so much as speak sharply to her tamer. I began to get angry before I had even heard the worst of it.

"She told me--" Renamon looked away from me in shame, "She told me she didn't need me--she didn't want me around."

My first instinct was to jump up and scream in outrage. Without Renamon, Rika would be just another kid who happened to be good at a card game. But I bit back my angry comments: I needed to comfort Renamon and that sort of thing wouldn't help.

"She doesn't mean it," I said, defending a spoiled little girl who didn't deserve the effort. "She's probably just upset about something else and is taking it out on you."

Renamon shook her head. "I don't think so. She seemed so adamant-- so certain."

I sat silently for a while. "It scares me sometimes--" I began.

Renamon looked up at me and gave me a wan little smile. "Something scares _you?_ I don't believe it."

I stroked her cheek and gave her my best wise-ass grin. "Beisides you, lover? Yeah, there's something that scares me: The power that tamers hold over us." I stopped grinning. "It's bad enough that they can control our bodies with their digivices. It seems totally unfair that they also have such a hold on our hearts."

Renamon sighed and snuggled closer to me. "You really miss him, don't you?"

"Danny? Yeah-- I still do. I only knew him for a few months but--" I trailed off.

Renamon kissed me gently.

"Hey, _I'm _supposed to be comforting _you_!" I said softly.

She kissed me again. "I'll stop if you want me to."

For once, I was smart enough to keep my mouth shut.

--

"Rika's a hardcase," I said later on in the afternoon. "What makes her a good tamer also makes her difficult to deal with sometimes. She'll get over it and welcome you back." I just couldn't resist a little jibe. "It'll be a snide and backhanded welcome, no doubt, but that's Rika for you."

"I hope you're right, Coyomon," she said.

"I'm _always _right, lover. I once _thought _I was wrong but it turns out I was mistaken about that."

It was a weak little laugh but it was a laugh.

--

That evening we watched a digital field flare over the skyline with unease.

"Should we go see what's up?" I asked Renamon.

"No," she said slowly, "Go have fun if you want but I'm going to wait here."

"It won't be much fun without you," I told her, hesitating. I really wanted to know what was making such a show but I also didn't want to leave Renamon.

"It's all right," she said. "Come back and tell me about it."

"Well--" I began.

Renamon suddenly jumped to her feet. "Rika!" she cried.

"I knew she'd call for you!" I grinned.

"No, Coyomon, she's in trouble!" Renamon said. "I can sense it."

"Where is she?" I asked.

As if in answer, a finger of energy shot upward into the night sky from the digital field on the horizon.

Renamon gasped and sprinted off toward the high-rises.

_Crap. What now? _I thought and followed her.

--


	9. Frozen Hearts

--

--

Chapter 9

Frozen Hearts

--

The whole top of the building was encased in an irregular globe of ice.

Renamon crouched to jump upward but I grabbed her by the elbow. She spun around on me, growling and instinctively raised her free claw to strike.

"Think!" I yelled right into her teeth. "Rika is safe for the moment. We have to be smart about this."

"How do you know she's safe?" Renamon hissed.

"If she was hurt, _you'd _know it. It would go through you like a knife. Believe me-- I _know_!" Renamon lowered her claws and I let go of her elbow.

"Whatever's up there _expects _you to come rushing in. It's using Rika as bait." I continued. "It'll be ready and waiting for you."

Renamon shook her head in frustration. "Then what should I do?"

"Go rushing in, of course." I gave her a tight, humorless smile. "But wait until I've had a chance to sneak around behind it."

It took me a lot longer than I'd hoped.

The inside of the globe was a nightmarish landscape of ice and frost.

I found Takato and Henry inside, trying to free their partners from a huge block of ice. There were other digimon frozen into the ice, too-- scattered around like some kind of twisted art gallery.

From what I overheard, the emaciated ghoul that was holding Rika hostage was Ice Devimon. Nasty-looking customer.

It's a bit tricky to shadow walk in a place that's all semi-reflective surfaces. I wasn't in place when Renamon's Diamond Storm blew a hole in the roof.

_Nice entrance, _I thought, and continued creeping along the wall.

Ice Devimon taunted Renamon and she went right for his throat. I could hardly believe my eyes-- he was faster than she was. She couldn't get off another Diamond Storm before he had nailed her with a Frozen Claw attack and slammed her to the ice-covered roof.

I hurried as much as possible but I still wasn't ready when Renamon attacked again. Ice Devimon slammed another Frozen Claw into her and she crashed into the floor, tried to rise, and then collapsed.

_You're going to pay for that, you evil bastard,_ I promised him silently. I'd be in position in another few seconds. _If only Renamon still has some fight left in her! _

Renamon might have been down and out but Kyuubimon wasn't. Just as I got to the perfect position. Rika's concern for her partner caused her to digivolve.

Kyuubimon leaped upward at the same time I did. I hit Ice Devimon's back, got him in a headlock (which wasn't easy considering he had wings as well as arms to deal with) and wrapped my legs around his waist, squeezing for all I was worth.

Kyuubimon got in a good double hind paw kick that spun him around while he was trying to reach me with his ridiculously long arms.

Holding on to him as I was, most of my attacks were useless but I still had one good weapon at my disposal. I opened my jaws as wide as they would go and bit into his exposed neck. It was like biting frozen bone and made my teeth ache but it got a very satisfying scream out of him.

I had Ice Devimon's arms trapped and that stopped his Frozen Claw but he could still use other special attacks. Kyuubimon used her Dragon Wheel attack and he countered with a Tundra Freeze. Then he gave a powerful flap of his wings and slammed me backwards into the ice wall of the dome.

I hit with terrific force. I gasped and my grip began to slip. I couldn't let go-- he would be free to attack Kyuubimon.

He _knew_ how much he'd hurt me with his body slam and raised his wings to do it again. I couldn't possibly hang on through another one of those so I took a wild chance. I let go of my scissor hold, swung my left paw up as high as it would go, and dug my claws into the membrane of his left wing. Just as he began to flap I kicked downward with every bit of my strength and used Earth Splitter. Without a connection to the ground I didn't expect much but I was pleasantly surprised. My claws tore down through his wing and out through the edge, trailing familiar blue ghost fire. _Thank you, Renamon,_ I thought with a smile.

He shrieked and his one good wing caused him to spin in the air, slamming it into an icy stalactite. We crashed to the roof of the building and I managed to land on top of him.

Despite the damage, he was still strong and showed no signs of weakening. I held on to my grip and bit into his neck and shoulders again. Kyuubimon burned his floundering wings with a Foxtail Inferno and then pounced and grabbed one of his arms in her jaws, and thrashed her head from side to side, wrenching his elbow until it cracked and bent backwards.

_Good idea_, I thought, _If he's mostly bones, let's deal with the bones themselves._ I transferred my bite to one of his wings, clamping down as hard as I could, and twisted at it for all I was worth. I could feel the bone crack and the ligaments tear under my fangs. Ice Devimon screamed and writhed beneath me, tearing long furloughs in the ice-covered roof. His remaining special attacks were useless while we were crushing him face-down into the roof.

From there on, the fight got really ugly.

Most combat between digimon are ritualized and almost formal bouts. Our battle against Ice Devimon was a brutal and merciless killing. We had to tear him apart, bit-by-bit. He was so powerful that he survived to the point where he looked like pile of broken sticks and shredded cloth.

Kyuubimon and I were exhausted by the time he finally died. We drank in the enormous rush of data together, shuddering side by side as Ice Devimon's strength entered and revived us.

We turned to Rika who was standing beside the other tamers. All the ice had disappeared with Ice Devimon's death and Guilmon and Terriermon were free-- and, with the possible exception of Terriermon, who had a secret, joyous glint in his eyes, they were all staring at Kyuubimon and I in horror.

Kyuubimon started toward her tamer but Rika backed away from her.

"I hate you." Rika said, glaring.

Kyuubimon stopped like she'd hit a wall.

"I hate digimon-- all of them!" Rika continued, glaring around at the rest of us.

Takato and Henry gasped in surprise and Rika pushed past them, heading for the stairs.

"She saved you from that thing!" I yelled at her retreating back. "You're gonna be picky about how she did it?"

Rika didn't answer or stop moving. I turned to the other tamers and they backed away from me. Guilmon actually growled at me. I couldn't believe how much that hurt.

I caught a golden flash out of the corner of my eye and turned in time to see Kyuubimon phase away into the sky.

Our glorious victory had turned to ashes.

--


	10. On Her Own

--

--

Chapter 10

On Her Own

--

I looked everywhere for her that night. Once or twice I caught a fleeting sense of her prescience but almost immediately lost it again. She didn't want to be found.

I wasn't willing to force myself on her even if I had been able to and I couldn't figure out anything else that would help the situation, so I went to my cell tower to sulk. We'd done everything right! Why had everything gone so wrong?

The next day I did a sweep to see if Renamon was anywhere to be found and made sure to stop by the park. I really needed to know if I had any friends left anywhere.

"Guilmon?" I called out from a respectful distance.

He peered around the edge of his hideout's doorway.

"You still mad at me, little buddy?"

"No!" he said in surprise. "I just--" he fiddled nervously with his claws. "Um-- you scared Takato. I didn't like that."

"I didn't mean to. I'd never hurt him-- ever. Will you tell him that for me?"

"Okay, sure."

"Thanks, Guilmon." I turned to leave.

"Hey," he called after me, "don't you want to stay and play?"

"I'd like to but I'm looking for Renamon."

"You like her, don't you?" he asked, smiling.

"Yeah, I do. I like her a lot." Boy, what an understatement!

"I think she's pretty," he said, "but--" he fiddled with his claws again, "--she's scary too, sometimes."

I laughed. "That's one of the things I like about her!" I winked at him. "After all, wolves don't mate with sheep!"

"Huh?"

My metaphor had gone right over his head.

He knitted his brows in thought. "Do they mate with wasps?"

_What the hell?_ "Uh-- nooo-- I don't think so, Guilmon."

"Oh good," he sounded relieved. "Because Renamon fought three wasp digimon by the baseball field this morning and--"

"What? She was here?"

"Yeah. I didn't see her but Terriermon told me about it."

"Was Rika with her?"

Guilmon was a bit confused on that subject. Rika had been there but not _with _Renamon was the best I could get out of him. It didn't seem to make any sense.

I needed to find Renamon.

I crisscrossed the park, phasing in and out, trying to catch some hint of her presence. If she was fighting in front of an audience she wasn't exactly hiding-- was she?

But she was.

I finally figured out what she was doing. Folded in shadow, she was keeping herself on the edge of a phase shift-- doubly hidden and nearly impossible to locate, even for a digimon.

I walked right under the branch she was sitting on. No reaction.

_I guess I'm going to have to force the issue,_ I thought with a sigh.

"I'm worried about you Renamon." I said out loud.

I heard her small intake of breath as she materialized.

"Rika had a bit of a shock, that's all," I continued. "She won't--"

"I don't need her." Renamon interrupted me.

That stopped me in my tracks. _Sweet, bleeding Tesla, what's going on here? _I couldn't think of an intelligent question to ask, so I tried a simple one. "Oh?"

"_You _don't need a tamer, so why should I?"

"I can't digivolve." I pointed out.

"Maybe you can."

Boy, she was just full of surprises that day. Simplicity worked pretty well the first time, so I gave it another try: "Oh?"

"Before we met, I fought a wild one who digivolved. I never found out how he did it but he certainly had no tamer. Impmon said that the power is inside me--"

"Whoah, whoah-- wait a minute! _Impmon? _Since when is that little twerp a font of wisdom?"

"But it's true," she insisted. "When I fought the wasps this morning I drew the strength from within me. I didn't need any help. If I can become stronger and stronger I know I'll digivolve _without _Rika."

Great. I was stuck between arguing her into waiting for Rika to let her come crawling back or standing aside and allowing her to continue on this obsessive and possibly self-destructive new path.

"I don't think I can help you make this decision. I don't think you _want _my help-- or interference." I illustrated my point by wrapping a wisp of shadow around myself and pulsing a few degrees out of phase for a second in imitation the stealth strategy she had used to hide from me. "But no matter how strong and independent you become-- you'll still need love."

"Hers or yours?" Renamon asked bluntly.

"That's for you to say," I shrugged. "You'll always have mine. That's all I know."

Renamon's expression softened for a moment and then went cold again. "Then why do I need Rika's-- assuming she's even willing to give it? She doesn't understand what I really am. You do."

I nodded. I thought back to the moment our eyes had met over the broken body of Ice Devimon and we had both recognized the savage joy of victory burning in each other.

"They _made_ us-- and still they don't know us for what we are." she murmured.

"Maybe that's why we feel the connection to them as tamers-- maybe we're just _made _that way. I don't know. But whether we're partners or alone, I hope we do have some purpose other than just _entertainment_." I fairly spat out the word.

"Henry said something about a higher purpose-- some bigger reason why we seek out tamers. He doesn't believe it's coincidence. But how can we possibly find out what that purpose is if even our creators don't know?"

"Henry, huh?" I snorted. "Who else have you been talking to about this?"

"Jealous?" There was a brief flash of a smile from her. "I asked him because he and Terriermon seem so close-- so well suited for each other."

"I think--" I began and then both our heads snapped around as a wave of phase energy whipped through us. A digital field was blossoming over a nearby clearing.

Renamon stood and laced her fingers together, turning her palms away from her and cracking her knuckles in rapid succession. "Let me handle this one, Coyomon."

"Of course," I nodded. I _did _understand. She needed to test herself-- _alone_.

--

Maybe it's just my big, sensitive ears, but I _really _don't like the noisy ones.

Harpymon never shut up. She didn't even have a good excuse for her screeching. It didn't do anything but detract from the enjoyment of watching Renamon kick the feathers off of her.

Guilmon, Terriermon and their trainers were there too, just watching as usual.

Renamon only used one Diamond Storm which Harpymon dodged. Otherwise she just went with straight-forward physical attacks, whirling and kicking and throwing blindingly fast flurries of punches.

I knew what she was doing-- she was testing her core power. Renamon wanted to know if she could draw on enough inner strength to beat a formidable opponent with raw force alone.

Evidently she _could_: Harpymon crashed to the ground in a heap and lay still.

I caught sight of Rika then. She was standing with the other gawkers. I couldn't help noticing that the spot on her belt where she usually hung her digivice was empty. How could she be so stupid? How could she turn her back on a beautiful, powerful creature who loved her?

I looked back at Renamon, expecting to see her finish off her downed foe-- but she was just standing there with her eyes closed. The kids couldn't read the subtleties of her expression and were wondering out loud what she was doing.

One look at her face and I_ knew._

She had proved herself. She had won her victory-- and found it hollow.

And her tamer was there, not giving enough of a damn to bring her digivice along. I truly wanted to slap Rika at that moment.

Suddenly, Harpymon leapt up. Whether she had been 'playing 'possum' or had just recovered, I don't know, but she wasted no time casting her Wind Seeker attack.

Renamon was blasted off her feet and Harpymon was hovering over her in an instant, striking out with both clawed feet. Renamon was fast enough to dodge each strike but she was caught in a repetitive pattern, unable to break out without taking a direct and possibly devastating hit.

I built up energy for a Fang Flurry. To hell with Renamon's desire to go it alone-- I wasn't going to stand by with my hands folded when she was in a tight spot. And then I had to clamp down on my attack when Rika jumped in my way.

She attacked Harpymon-- with a pointed stick! _Okay, girl, you've just earned the full measure of my respect._ I silently told her.

Harpymon spun around in fury and raised her claws to attack. Rika's desperate stab had surprised and enraged her but done little damage.

_Pick on a little girl, would you?_ I thought grimly, building up my Fang Flurry again. _Let's see how well you can do that without a head._

I never got to use my special. As soon as Harpymon turned away from her, Renamon digivolved. There was no messing around, no hesitation: Kyuubimon blasted Harpymon to fragments.

So, it turned out that seeing her partner about to be killed made Rika act from her heart instead of her head. Too bad she needed such a kick in the pants to get her priorities straight, but, as I said to myself, _whatever works._

--

Renamon was almost blissful that next week. Evidently, the various traumas Rika had gone through had caused her emotional walls to crumble. She was being unabashedly affectionate with Renamon and even respectful of her.

The change was even more drastic than I first realized. After Renamon and I finished off a wild one that had bio-emerged near Rika's house, she gave us both a nod of approval and said, "Good teamwork, you guys."

I turned to Renamon and asked, "Did she just say something nice in my general direction?"

"I believe she did."

I turned to Rika. "Who are you and what have you done with Rika Nonaka?"

"Knock it off, flea-bag. Can't you take a compliment without being a wise-ass?" she snapped.

"Ah, that's better!" I told her. "I wouldn't want to think you were going soft."

She just rolled her eyes and stomped back through the garden gate. Renamon flashed me a grin and followed her.

I was about to head off to my tower when Rika stuck her head back through the gate. "Coyomon?"

"Yes Rika?"

"Would you like to come in and see the garden? Renamon said you might like it."

Evidently, Rika's special attack was Unexpected Kindness. It certainly stunned _me_. After a heroic effort to get my brain to comprehend what had just been said to me, I replied, "Yes, Rika. I'd like that very much."

The three of us spent a very pleasant couple of hours together in the Nonaka's beautiful garden.

There were more good days like that one and it seemed like things were going perfectly-- until H.Y.P.N.O.S. tried to kill us all.

--


	11. Like a Dog With a Stick

--

--

Chapter 11

Like a Dog With a Stick

--

I don't know for sure if I was stronger than Renamon (our sparring matches came out nearly equal) but when she digivolved into Kyuubimon, she was so much more powerful than I was, it made it a bit difficult to fight alongside her. I still got in there with her and kicked some serious butt, (okay, so I took my lumps, too-- that's the way it goes) but I knew I was more of a distraction for the Nasty Uglies than a threat.

There were times when I would have _loved_ some kind of mod to help me out and that got me to thinking. If I wanted an extra edge I was going to have to do something about it myself. I lightly touched my vest over the right inside pocket. _No_, I thought, _I've tried that before and it just doesn't work. I'll have to think of something else._

So I asked myself what humans would do to make themselves more effective in combat. Some sort of weapon, of course. Normal guns were useless. They might be fine against flesh and blood but they had hardly any effect on creatures made up of quantum-entangled data.

I finally settled on a staff. It was a good all-round weapon and would fit through the little portal in my vest.

I spent some of my spare time lurking around various karate dojos secretly watching masters of the bo staff performing their art and figuring out how to adapt their techniques to my own abilities. I practiced with chunks of industrial rebar that I pinched off of commercial construction sites but after one or two good hits on a solid target, they got bent all out of shape. Normal materials were just too fragile. I needed something from the Digital Dimension.

--

"So you see," I explained to the exhausted wild digimon I was sitting on, "I need you to go back to the Digital Dimension and bring me a staff-- plus a little something extra. I've got all the specifications written down right here." I handed him a small note pad. "And this," I passed him a small cloth bag, "should do for payment. Try the weapon smiths in the Iron Desert."

"Why should I do this?" He demanded. He looked sort of like a purple opossum with a rash of steel spikes and blades.

"Because if you refuse, I'm going to kill you," I said, reasonably. "Or, when I send you back to the Digital Dimension, you can _try_ and hide there-- until I hunt you down. But if you come back _here_ without my staff, I'll do something worse."

His eyes rolled back in their sockets trying to see me where I crouched amid the bent and broken steel spines of his back. "Worse?"

I leaned over so he could see my evil grin. "Yeah-- _much_ worse. I'll hand you over to _Renamon_ to play with."

I had laid it on pretty heavy because it was meant to be one of those threats that are scarier because of the unknown factor involved. But this guy seemed to know who Renamon was-- and it scared the crap out of him. _Interesting_. He struggled frantically to get up but I had clobbered him pretty good and he didn't have much strength left.

"Okay," he gasped, "I will bring you your staff."

"Good!" I hopped off his back and lifted him off the ground by the scruff of his neck with my right hand while opening the flap of my vest with my left hand. "Now, this is a really little portal, so it's going to be quite a tight squeeze."

He goggled at the tiny sparkling portal inside my vest but I didn't give him any time to change his mind. It took a huge amount of effort to cram the guy through and I thought for a while I was going to break him but I finally managed it. Good thing he was pretty compact to begin with. I wiped stray bits of purple fur off my vest and then yelled through the portal, "And don't touch my doughnuts!"

--

Purple Possummon (or whatever the heck his name was) was quick; I'll give him that. He was back in less than two days.

"It's _beautiful! _" I breathed as I unwrapped the staff's cloth covering. It was perfectly sized for me, and made out of some dark golden material I couldn't identify. Unlike a traditional bo, the ends were pointed and slightly flattened to provide cutting edges and stabbing points. It was perfectly weighted and balanced.

"You did good, Possummon!"

"My name isn't Possum--"

"Yeah, yeah-- whatever." I waved him away. "You can go. You'll probably find lots of people to terrorize in the park over there. Go have fun."

He chortled and leapt the fence into the park. About three minutes later there was a roar and the trees were backlit by a huge burst of red flame. _Yup_, I said to myself, _I figured Guilmon would be over there at this time of night. Poor Possummon._

--

I didn't unwrap the other, smaller package until I saw Renamon again.

We were perched on top of my cell tower watching the moon rise over the city. She was hefting my staff and giving it an experimental twirl. "It's a good weapon, Coyomon. It feels a bit odd to hold a digital construct that hasn't been generated by a modify card, though."

"I think that may be because the knowledge of how to use it isn't automatically carried with it."

"That makes sense," she nodded.

"Um--" I began hesitantly. Hell. I had planned to do this in a nonchalant manner and here I was, getting all nervous.

"Yes?" she asked, turning toward me.

"Besides the staff, I-- um-- had something else made." I held out the necklace to her. "For you."

She used her huge claws to delicately lift the taijitu from my hand. She held it in her palm and just stared at it without saying anything.

"It's just like the ones on your arm-guards but the dots are little coyote paw prints, see? Because-- well-- I thought--" I was mentally slapping my self. _Get a grip, dumb-ass. _"So-- um-- it's not too _sappy_, is it?"

She grabbed me so suddenly and so hard that I felt a momentary flare of fighting instinct.

"Oh, Coyomon, it's _beautiful!_" She hugged and nuzzled me enthusiastically.

"Good," I gasped, feeling my ribs creak, "I'm glad you like it."

She relaxed her grip a bit and leaned back to gaze into my eyes. "How did I get so lucky?"

"Hey, _I'm_ the lucky one," I protested.

She just grinned and held out the necklace to me. "Put it on me."

I slipped the chain around her neck and the black and white disk immediately sank from view in her thick ruff.

"Oh," I said, feeling foolish, "I didn't think about that."

"It's where it should be," Renamon told me, "next to my heart. It doesn't matter if anyone else can see it-- _I_ know it's there."

--

We had a quick little chase that ended up in a glade in the park. I noticed that Renamon kept putting her hand to her throat every few minutes, sinking her fingers into her ruff to touch the necklace.

I slipped an arm around her and gently stroked her flank and hip, making her fur sparkle just slightly. She made a satisfied sound and turned her head to kiss me. The soft, slick feeling of our tongues gliding along and around each other was accompanied by a warm, tingling sensation. Renamon's claws ran lightly down my flanks, trailing tiny blue sparks.

I ran my hands down her back, ever so slowly, stoking and kneading the long muscles beneath her fur. I _pushed_ ever so gently, working the energy into her body with my palms and fingertips.

"Oh," she breathed, "that feels so nice."

I slid my hands lower, continuing my energy massage and Renamon sighed and pulled me tightly against her, nuzzling my neck and shoulders. I gently nipped at her cheek and ear while I continued stroking her. She let a tiny "oh" slip past her lips in the sexiest voice imaginable and began to slowly rub her body against mine. I pulsed the energy through my hands and into the perfect curves of her rump in a slow and steady rhythm-- like a heartbeat.

"Oh, oh, oh--" Renamon moaned quietly and rocked her hips against mine. I nipped her just below her jaw line and let my teeth and tongue launch more tiny embers of data and energy into her neck while I lifted one hand and slid it beneath her ruff. She moaned more urgently as I ran my hand over the proud curve of her chest and down the taut muscles of her belly, her fur crackling and dancing with little flares of light in its wake. Renamon gasped and nosed my muzzle away from her neck so that she could kiss me again.

The way she moved was like waves of water washing over my body and she made me forget my intent to stretch out the foreplay as long as possible. With one hand curved around her behind and one pressing low on her belly, I made my energy surge between them, forcing a flow of data through her magnificent body. Renamon cried out on a taken breath, her head thrown back and her claws digging into my back. I could feel the waves of pleasure ripple through her and timed my pulses to match them. She lifted one powerful thigh and wrapped it around my hip, using her heel against my rump to crush me against her, trapping my hand between us.

I used the last of my strength to push energy through every bit of my body that touched hers in one intense flare. Renamon screamed and every muscle in her body leapt into hard, trembling curves. Her head snapped forward and she buried her teeth into my neck as her claws ripped across my shoulders and her body jerked wildly against mine.

The strength went out of both of us and we fell in a graceless heap. We were both gasping-- Renamon with satisfaction and me with-- well-- half exhaustion, half _pain_. It was moments before Renamon came back to herself and realized what had happened.

"Oh, your poor neck!" she cried. "I'm so sorry!"

"It was worth it," I told her. "You don't know how much I love hearing you moan like that-- feeling you move like that. I wouldn't care if you chewed my arm off."

She bent her head and licked my wounds. I gently stroked her back as the clear blue shimmer of light that flowed from her tongue healed me.

"Ahh--" I sighed, "that feels wonderful."

Renamon sat up and regarded me quietly for a moment and then placed one hand on my chest and pushed me to the earth. She leaned over as if for a kiss and her tongue lightly flicked out and touched just the tip of mine as it dripped cool blue fire. She ran her tongue along the underside of my jaw and nipped her way ever so gently down my throat. She nuzzled through my ruff and her teeth traced the outlines of my chest muscles as her tongue flickered in and out, making my fur crackle and my skin tingle. She slid lower down my body and the sparkling flares of light where her mouth moved over my belly became more intense. My stomach muscles jerked involuntarily and I couldn't suppress a gasp of pleasure.

It wasn't long before I was moaning and writhing with almost unbearable sensation. Renamon's tongue painted stripes of shivering ecstasy all over my body and her teeth punctuated them with bright sparks of pleasure. I kneaded her shoulders and rolled my head from side to side, crying out as bight flashes of blue light lit the trees above me.

There was one last actinic burst of light and a searing flare of pleasure ripped through me. My lips peeled back from my fangs and I howled as my body snapped into a hard arch, jerking uncontrollably.

--

We lay together on the soft grass for a long time afterward. I stoked and kissed Renamon gently but didn't say anything. Words just couldn't express all joy and tenderness I felt toward her. She lay in my arms and snuggled against me, her cheek against my chest. We might have lain there all night if the police hadn't come storming through the park.

"I dunno," said one of the officers to another, "If someone had been setting off a bunch of fireworks here, wouldn't we be able to smell the burnt powder?"

"We got four different people calling about it. _Something_ must have happened here."

"Yeah, and one of them claimed it was _demons_! Sheesh!"

Renamon and I exchanged looks and couldn't help but burst out laughing.

It scared the hell out of the cops.

--


	12. A Tale by the Tiger

--

--

Chapter 12

A Tale by the Tiger

--

I was stealing doughnuts from a bakery when the intense blast of phase energy rolled over me. The shockwave knocked me into sync with the world and a very surprised customer got a sudden, close-up look at me stuffing pastries into my vest. I shifted back out of phase as he started yelling and pointing and I slipped through the back wall and into the alley.

The sky was a fiery whirlpool of colors. It looked like an intense sunset but was circular in shape and centered on a dark circle like the eye of a typhoon. I felt an overwhelming pull from that eye. I could sense that some digimon was there-- huge and powerful-- a worthy opponent-- the fight of my life.

The doughnut I was holding dropped, unheeded, from my fingers and I began to run toward the center of the storm. Soon I could sense other digimon around me heading in the same direction. I sped up, unwilling to let any of them steal my fight from me.

Then I got smart.

As I approached the building directly beneath the storm, I could see that flying digimon had gotten there before me-- and were breaking apart as they tried to enter the eye. Something _really_ wrong was going on. I slowed down, grimly resisting the enticing pull from the storm.

That's when the beam of blue energy blasted down from the eye and lit the top of the skyscraper. I thought I saw some pulse traveling downwards through the beam just before the booming voice began to speak from above.

I slowed to a trot. The voice was going on and on about digimon conquering the earth and making humans their servants. _Is this some kind of outrageous prank?_ I wondered to myself.

Then I saw Henry just ahead of me at the outer end of a pedestrian bridge that lead from a small park to the plaza surrounding the building. A man had him by his shirtfront and was shaking him and yelling into his face. Terriermon was sitting on the ground looking stunned. I had no idea who the man was but there was no way I was going to let him treat Henry like that. I grabbed the guy by his collar and yanked him away.

He spun to face me as I dropped him and yelled, "Monsters! Abominations!"

I kept my eyes on him and asked Henry out of the corner of my mouth, "Who's the nut-job?"

"I think he has something to do with that," Henry pointed up at the fiery whirlpool. "I've seen him before."

The man had pulled a PDA from his pocket and was glaring at it. "It should have worked! My code was perfect!'

I plucked the PDA from his hand and looked at the screen. The graphic displayed on the screen seemed to be a wire-frame representation of the churning storm overhead. The man made a grab for the device and I shoved him away just hard enough to make him take a half-dozen steps backward. I crushed the PDA in my fist and tossed the wad of crumpled aluminum and plastic remains to the ground.

The storm whirled on, as strong as ever. "It was worth a try," I shrugged. "Why don't you explain what's going on here, mister?"

"I don't have anything to say to you, you monster!"

I took a step forward and reached for him, my lips wrinkling back from my fangs. "If you insist on calling me that, I might have to live up to the name. Now, tell me what's going on or--"

Renamon flashed by me in a golden blur. She crossed the bridge in one bound, hit the side of the building, and shot upward without slowing down.

I hesitated only an instant. My desire to beat the truth out of the creepy guy couldn't compare to my concern for Renamon. There was no way I'd let her face whatever was up there alone. I raced after her.

I landed on the roof a dozen meters from where Renamon crouched. She was scanning the rooftop looking for the powerful digimon we could both feel was there-- somewhere. I closed my eyes and listened.

I heard the rush of displaced air just in time. My eyes snapped open and I pointed. "There!" Renamon and I leaped and rolled in different directions and the enormous winged tiger hurtled between us like a runaway locomotive.

I couldn't see Renamon past the huge bulk of the tiger's body and wings but I felt the familiar energy pulse and I knew she had digivolved.

"How about a dance, big boy?" Kyuubimon taunted the tiger.

The tiger just bellowed in rage. I quietly slid my staff out of my vest.

"Tough guy, huh?" she smirked.

Kyuubimon and the tiger leaped at each other. _Forgot about the _little_ guy, did you, Mr. Stripy Pants? _I thought. _Well, maybe I can remind you! _I jumped for the tiger's side as he passed, intending to stab him in the flank. I was just a fraction of a second too slow and the point of my staff skittered off one of the huge round shields that hung from his hips and shoulders. I landed staff first and tucked into a forward roll, bouncing to my feet between Kyuubimon and the tiger. Neither of them seemed to have taken any damage.

Kyuubimon flipped herself back toward the tiger and spun into her Dragon Wheel attack. I ducked to get out of her way and found myself just below the tiger's belly as he sprang in a turn off his forelegs. There was the sound of a terrific impact above me and I thought, _Yeah, lover-- dish him out some pain, _and then I followed my own advice and stabbed upward with my bo.

The point of the staff ripped deeply into the tiger's belly and he reared up in pain and surprise. Now that he was fully aware of my existence and concentrating his focus on me, I expected Kyuubimon to hit him again.

But nothing happened.

I just barely managed to dodge a swipe of the tiger's claw that tore a giant chunk out of the parapet and tried to figure out where Kyuubimon was. I couldn't see her anywhere. The tiger roared at me and leaped. I had no further time for anything but a fight for my own survival. I dodged one more pulverizing claw swipe and managed to rip a shallow cut into the tiger's foreleg. He twisted away and then slewed sideways in an odd sort of maneuver.

Too late, I figured out what he was doing. _His tail! _I shifted my hands to an aggressive grip and thrust with my staff, hoping that his own strength would do the tiger some damage when the gigantic segment of his tail slammed into me.

I never knew if it did or not.

I think it was the noise of tree branches snapping as I crashed through them that woke me just in time to experience plowing headfirst into a flowerbed.

After I regained consciousness for the second time, I sat up, spat out a mouthful of dirt, and tried to figure out what was happening. The top of the skyscraper was blazing with bolts of energy and the sounds of a titanic struggle echoed through the glass and steel canyons of the city.

I finally managed to stand and stagger back across the pedestrian bridge by supporting myself hand-over-hand along the guardrail. When I reached the plaza I saw a limp Terriermon in Henry's arms and Rika crouched by Renamon who lay in a crater of smashed paving stones.

"Renamon?" I gasped and tried to go to her. As soon as I let go of the guardrail I stumbled and fell.

"It's okay, Coyomon," Henry said as he knelt down next to me, still cradling Terriermon. "She'll be alright."

"Are you sure?" I gasped, trying to crawl closer to her.

"Calm down," came that sweet velvet voice. Renamon turned her battered face toward me. "You act like I've never been swatted off a skyscraper by a giant tiger before."

"Ow," I said as I sank to the pavement, "It hurts when I laugh."

I relaxed enough to finally notice what Takato was doing-- and what it meant. "Holy Tesla!" I cried out loud as I looked up at the roaring lightshow above. "You mean my little buddy is taking on that thing all by himself?"

Henry was staring at the grim-faced Takato. "Not by himself, no," he said quietly.

I needn't have worried. My not-so-little-anymore buddy cooked the kitty, but _good_.

I don't think I ever regretted not being able to digivolve so much as when War Growlmon landed in the plaza. He was an enormous and magnificent (okay-- and _scary_) blend of dragon and machine. Funny, though: he didn't scare Takato at all.

I sighed. Wondering what I might be like in a high-energy Ultimate form was a pretty stupid exercise when I was having trouble just walking upright. Henry found my staff stuck in a bush and brought it back to me. He lent me a shoulder and we limped away from the scene of the battle.

"What was all that nonsense about digimon conquering the world?" I asked of nobody in particular.

**--**


	13. Why Does It Always Have to be Snakes?

**--**

Chapter 13

Why Does It Always Have to be Snakes?

--

Guilmon and Takato were playing in the park on a beautiful Saturday afternoon and normally I would have joined them but they were in the middle of a crowd of other kids and I didn't feel comfortable showing myself to non-tamers after years of keeping hidden.

I preformed several _katas_ by myself in a small glade, making up new moves to insert into the traditional patterns that would take advantage of my inhuman speed and strength. I used the trees and a power pole to add in some vertical maneuvers and phased in and out in time with my strikes. It was a lot of fun and I became so absorbed that I didn't notice Renamon's arrival.

"What was that fancy spin for?" she asked from her seat on a high tree branch. "I don't think it would do much damage. Are you really practicing moves that are just for show?"

I stopped and flipped my staff into my vest. I knew she was gently teasing me. "Psychological weapon," I quipped, "Scares the heck out of your opponent if it looks like you think so little of them that you can afford to goof off during a fight."

She dropped from her branch and walked over to me, sliding an arm around my waist and giving my ear a little nuzzle that turned into a pretty good nip. "Just don't get your butt kicked while you're busy goofing off, okay?"

I made as if to snap at one of her ears and then turned the move into a kiss on the end of her nose. "I promise," I said.

--

"Do you think it's wise, letting all those kids know we're real?" I asked Renamon. We were taking a stroll around our favorite high-rise rooftops and had got to talking about Takato and his friends. "Won't most people react badly when they realize there are--" I didn't want to use the crazy guy's slur but it fit too well. "--_monsters_ living among them?"

"I don't know," she sighed, "I've given up trying to understand how people think." She paused for a moment, standing on the support struts of a neon sign. "Someone in a position of power certainly knows we exist-- and is going to great lengths to keep most people from finding out about us."

I snorted in derision. "Yeah-- 'electrical transformer explosion' my furry behind! Since when does an explosion leave seven meter wide claw marks in a roof?" I was just getting worked up. "So, on one side we've got some overgrown megalomaniac twittering on about conquering the world and on the other we've got some spooky types covering up all the evidence of our existence and maybe messing around with some very dangerous digital technology."

"Yes," Renamon nodded, "That's pretty much all we know. Do you have any idea how it all fits together?"

"NO!" I yelled, slamming my fist into a ventilator hood and smashing it out of shape. "And it's driving me _nuts!_"

Renamon jumped to the roof and gave me a hug to calm me down. "We'll find out sooner or later. Maybe we can track--" She stopped abruptly and stiffened in my arms.

"Rika?" I asked, though I knew the answer.

Renamon nodded and let go of me, turning and leaping for the next roof in one fluid motion. I followed close behind her. We only had a short way to go: Three streets over we could see people fleeing the mist of a digital field billowing out of the Akasaka-Mitsuke subway station entrance. We both phased out as we leapt for the stairs and phased back in again on either side of Rika where she stood on the subway platform.

"Oh great," I sighed, "another big damned snake." I turned to Renamon. "Meet you in the middle?"

"Of course," she smirked, "but this time _I _get the head."

"Stop arguing," Rika said, "There's plenty for the both of you-- and I need a new pair of boots." Girls that young shouldn't be _able_ to produce a smile that evil.

"One snakeskin, coming up!" I jumped hard for the low ceiling and flipped to rebound off of it and over the snake's head while whipping my staff out of my vest. I landed on its back and punched the point of the bo through its spine-- or _tried_ to. The point hit steel hard scales and skittered off to one side.

Renamon wasn't having any better luck. She threw a Diamond Storm straight into the thing's face without getting so much as a blink from it. I crouched down, thinking I might be able to stab upward along the snake's body and get underneath its scales, when suddenly it whipped itself over the platform and onto the opposite tracks. I half-jumped half-fell off of its back, looked over to where Renamon and Rika were crouched behind a pillar, and made a 'now what?' gesture.

Rika flipped a card out of her pouch, slashed it through her digivice, and Renamon was suddenly enveloped by an energy vortex.

_Good plan_, I thought.

The snake (Sandiramon, according to Rika's digivice) didn't seem that interested in fighting us. It fled down the tunnel with surprising speed. Rika leaped onto Kyuubimon's back as she finished her digivolution and they raced after it with me following close behind.

Though Kyuubimon was much more powerful, she wasn't as fast as when in her Renamon form. The snake was steadily gaining ground. I was considering taking the lead when Sandiramon ran into a train blocking its path at the next station. We gained on it then but the roadblock didn't last long. I don't know what the heck it did, but the train dissolved like a sugar cube in hot tea. Sandiramon surged on and we followed.

As we passed the platform I was surprised to see Terriermon and Henry standing there. Rika threw her phone to Henry, yelling at him to call Takato. That girl was just full of good plans that day.

We continued the chase.

When Sandiramon got far enough ahead that it looked like we might loose it, I yelled to Rika that I'd go on ahead. She shook her head, slashed a Hyper-Speed modify card through her digivice and Kyuubimon flashed away from me. Then _I_ was the one trying to keep up.

_Must be nice,_ I grumbled to myself, _to have just the right mod whenever you need it._

When I caught up, Renamon was fighting the snake next to another digimon I'd never seen before. Then I saw Henry standing next to Rika and figured out who it must be. Gargomon actually looked quite a bit like Terriermon but that's no guarantee of anything when digivolution is involved.

As soon as I got close enough, I rammed my staff up under one of Sandiramon's steely scales. It went in just fine-- and stuck there. Sandiramon whipped its tail around me and squeezed the breath out of me. My arms were pinned against my sides and my paws were dangling in the air so there was no way I could use my special attacks. I tried to bite its tail but that was about as effective as gnawing on a building.

_Moron!_ I silently cursed at myself. _You could have used an Earth Splitter but, no, you had to play with your precious stick!_

To add further indignity, Sandiramon then used me as a club to slam Gargomon off his feet. It smashed me a few more times against the subway tracks and dropped me. By the time I had struggled to my feet, Gargomon was back up and blazing away beside Kyuubimon and neither one was having much effect.

Then the roof fell in.

But that was a _good_ thing.

Guilmon and Takato had somehow burrowed down from above and were now pitching into Sandiramon. Guilmon almost immediately digivolved into Growlmon and, as if they had practiced it, Kyuubimon, Gargomon, and Growlmon all hit the miserable snake with special attacks at the same instant. I wish I had been able to add mine but I was still staggering from my bashing and it would have been unnecessary, anyway. The snake was finished.

It took a while to die and with its last breaths it taunted us with a tale of 'devas' and threats to destroy us all.

_Maybe that tiger wasn't a nut-job after all_, I thought as I scrounged around the tracks looking for my staff. I sighed. _It would be so much better if he _was_, though._

We left the subway station through Guilmon's burrow and found a crowd of kids waiting for us on the surface. We all quickly went off to Guilmon's hideout but I was still very nervous about being in a big group of humans. The kids were nice enough but they kept asking questions and all talking at once. It was a bit of a madhouse.

There was one little girl in particular who seemed to take a special interest in me. She asked what my special attacks were and if she could touch my tail. I let her stroke it and she giggled shyly and produced a little dog hand puppet.

"Arf, arf!" She said, moving the puppets mouth, "Your tail is nice and soft!"

Kyuubimon's eyes met mine over the girl's head and that lousy vixen actually grinned at my discomfort.

"Arf, arf! Who's your tamer?"

Well, it was inevitable that someone would ask and I had prepared myself. "Arf, arf!" I barked back at the puppet, "Nobody's my tamer. I'm a big, bad _wild_ digimon!" And I raised my hands and wiggled my fingers, making an absolutely pathetic growling noise.

The girl shrieked with laughter, but she wasn't diverted for an instant. "You're not _bad._ You're nice and you should have a tamer!"

My gaze met Kyuubimon's again and this time she wasn't smiling. The rest of the crowd had quieted down a bit and I felt like everyone was listening in.

I had to bluff it out. "Nice? Me?" I put a hand to my chest in mock indignation. "No, no-- I'm _awful!_ You know who's _nice_? CALUMON!" And as I shouted out his name, I reached out and grabbed the poor little guy by the feet and tossed him into the air.

"Whoah!" he cried as I tossed him from hand to hand. I figured I'd steal him a dozen creampuffs later to make it up to him.

"Calumon's all ears and eyes--" I chanted as I juggled him. "--stuck on a head that's just the right size!" The kids all laughed and damned if Calumon didn't giggle, too. "He's so sweet it makes me think--" I flipped him behind my back and caught him in both hands in front of me, holding him up above the crowd. "--his creampuff farts don't even _stink! _"

There was a burst of laughter from the kids as well as a couple of surprised looks from some who hadn't expected a 'nice' digimon like me to use such language. The little girl was blushing furiously and burying her face against her hand puppet.

_Whatever it takes to shut you up, honey_, I thought.

Rika was a bit disgusted at all the childish antics and she gave me a good excuse to leave when she announced that she needed to get home and reassure her grandmother who she had abandoned at the station when Sandiramon's attack began.

--

Later that evening, when we were curled up together on top of my cell tower after a brief romp around the district, Renamon stirred restlessly in my arms.

"Hey, Renachan," I said lightly, lifting her chin up so that I could look her in the eyes, "is something bothering you?"

"I'm--" she didn't usually hesitate. I swiveled my ears forward. "I'm worried about you."

"Because of what that little girl said to me today? I'm getting used to that sort of thing. Don't worry, I've got a pretty thick skin."

"No, it's not that-- or not _only_ that." She sighed and stopped talking.

I nosed her cheek in a pointed manner.

"It's just that I don't want to offend you--" she trailed off again.

_Uh-oh,_ I thought. "I don't think you _can_ offend me, Renamon. But you can hurt me. You can break my heart." I looked straight into her gorgeous sapphire eyes. "If that's what you're going to do-- please make it quick."

"No," she gasped in shock, "that's not it at all!"

"Oh, thank Tesla!" I breathed out heavily and flopped back against an antenna strut. "Then, give it to me straight, lover. Anything else but _that_ I can take."

"I think you need a tamer."

I sat up again and goggled at her. "That's weird. I could swear you said I need a tamer."

She swatted me on my chest. "Oh, be serious for one moment, would you?"

"Oookay--," I said doubtfully, "what makes you think that?"

"If what Sandiramon said is true, we are going to be attacked by more digimon that are just as strong or stronger."

"Yep," I agreed. "I think that's all too likely. But look what we did once we all started working as a team. We kicked that snake's ass!"

"Leaving aside the question of whether or not snakes have asses," Renamon said dryly, "It took Gargomon, Growlmon and I in my Champion form, all using our most powerful attacks, to finish it off. We could only do that because we could digivolve and we could only digivolve because we have tamers."

A few dozen protests and rationalizations sprang to mind-- but I wasn't going to lie to the only creature in the world that loved me.

"And I didn't even scratch the thing." I sighed.

Renamon touched my cheek gently. "And you were hurt. I know you made a big show of shrugging it off but you can't fool me. Another serious attack from Sandiramon would have killed you."

"So what am I going to do? Sit on the sidelines and watch while you and the others have all the fun?" I grinned at her weakly.

"No," she whispered urgently to me, "not if you find a tamer!" She grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me lightly. "You'd have mods when you needed them and you'd be able to digivolve!"

I just stared at her, my thoughts in a whirl.

She ran her hands down over the muscles of my arms and her gaze traveled down my body and then rose to meet my eyes. "You'd make a magnificent Champion-- I know you would."

"But--" Suddenly a thousand thoughts and questions crowded into my mind, "Who? Not that little girl?"

Renamon laughed. "No, of course not! But I'm sure you could find someone who would suit you."

"I--"

"Promise me you'll consider it."

"Of course, Renachan." I leaned over and kissed her. "My biggest joy in life is to be by your side-- playing, fighting, or making love-- and I don't want to give up any part of that. If I have to digivolve to keep up with you, then that's what I'll do."

She sighed and snuggled happily into my arms.

I was thinking desperately while we lay there quietly together. I didn't want a tamer. But I had to digivolve somehow. Renamon had said she saw an unpartnered digimon do it once. So maybe there was another way to digivolve. If I could find that way, I wouldn't have to tie myself to a tamer.

So I did the only logical thing I could do: I went on a killing spree.

--


	14. Energy Drinks

--

--

Chapter 14

Energy Drinks

--

It wasn't as much fun as it sounds.

First off, I had developed something like a conscience. I didn't feel right attacking just any old digimon for the sake of uploading its data. I had to find ones that were up to no good-- and not just irritating mischief like what that little twerp Impmon got up to, but real nastiness. Renamon was having a bad influence on me.

Fortunately for me, there were a lot of digimon who were sneaking around, intent on doing harm.

I fought as many as I could find and I discovered a couple of things that surprised me. One was that I could draw on an inner strength I hadn't known was in me, just as Renamon had described to me after her solo fight with the wasps. The other was that I could get _full_.

After my fourth victory in a day I felt like an overfilled balloon. My skin felt tight on me and my muscles felt swollen and hot. The first time it happened I was sure I was about to digivolve but nothing happened and the feeling slowly went away.

I assumed I'd fallen just short of the amount of data needed and so the next time I felt stuffed, I kept looking for another victim-- which damned near got me killed.

I had been relying mostly on physical attacks. I loved the feeling of pulling strength up from deep inside myself and was only resorting to specials when I really needed to. I almost didn't have time to use one when the innocuous-looking little digimon that was my fifth fight of the day suddenly grew red-hot spikes and slapped me upside the head with them. Ordinarily, I could have dodged the attack with ease but my overstuffed condition made me slower than normal-- a _lot_ slower. As the spiked arms whipped around for another swipe I managed to trigger a Fang Flurry that tore the little guy to shreds but it was a close thing. And after all that effort and risk I found that I couldn't absorb any of his data. I was just too full.

After a few days of stuffing myself to the eyeballs (and making Shinjuku a slightly safer district, I might add) I knew I was no nearer to digivolving than before. It's true I was getting a lot stronger but it wasn't the qualitative difference that I needed to make the quantum jump to Champion level. I could feel that, somehow. It wasn't just data I needed. There had to be some event that triggered the change. For the partnered digimon it was easy. Their tamers used enough modify cards or just felt enough concern and--

_Is it just emotion that does it? _I wondered. _If so, Renamon's right and I'm never going to be able to digivolve without a tamer._

But that wild one she fought had done it-- without help and in the middle of a fight.

_Damn! I'm just chasing my tail! _I cursed under my breath. _One more week of this overeating and then I'll give up and try something else-- _I sighed. --o_r look for a tamer._

--

The night after that the lights went out all over the city. Emergency radio broadcasts said it was a faulty switching station but by now I could_ smell_ a cover story.

I zipped over to Rika's house and met Renamon in the garden. If this was something nasty we were on our own: The rest of the gang was on a school camping trip.

"I sense something," Renamon said, "but it's faint-- probably far away."

"Then the best thing we can do is stay here and guard the house." I replied.

We sat together on the roof and had a sporadic conversation between periods of alternating watchfulness and stillness when we tried to sense tiny ripples in the energy fields.

"Can you remember anything unusual about the fight you had with the wild one who digivolved?"

"You're still determined to avoid finding a tamer?" she answered my question with one of her own.

"No," I sighed, "I will if I have to-- but I really don't want to."

"What about Kazu? He's good at the card game."

I grimaced. "Not half so good as he thinks he is-- and that could be trouble."

"You can't wait for the perfect partner to come along."

"Says the digimon with the perfect partner." I didn't mean for it to sound so sarcastic.

Renamon was surprised. "Well-- Rika's very good but--"

The lights on the skyline flickered back on and the streetlights spread their glow, like ripples on a pond, across the neighborhood.

"Well," I said, standing up and walking to the roof's edge, "whatever was going on seems to be over for now. Rika should be safe enough."

"Don't go." Renamon said quietly.

I walked back to her and folded her in my arms. "I'm sorry I've been snappy, Renachan," I told her while stroking her back. "It's just not easy for me to--" I sighed and shook my head, unable to find the words to express what I was feeling.

"I don't want to push you into something you don't want," she said, gently kneading my shoulder muscles, "but I don't want to be separated from you for any reason, either. I feel like we were made for each other."

She must have felt me stiffen slightly at her words because she leaned back and looked searchingly into my eyes. "What is it?"

"There may be more truth to that than you know, lover."

She tilted her head in that adorable way she has of asking a silent question.

I sat down on the roof and drew her down with me. "You know that Danny, my tamer, drew me into existence, right? Like Takato did with Guilmon."

She nodded.

I reached into my vest and pulled out a hardbound sketchbook and held it out to her. "Take a look." The cover had a spiral design and my tamer's full name: Danny Kanetewa. "Sounds Japanese, doesn't it? But it's not. That's an American Indian name. Danny was from a reservation in Arizona."

Renamon gently took the book from me and opened it. She flipped through the first pages which I knew contained many sketches of various digimon from the card games and TV series. "He was quite a good artist," she said.

I nodded. "Keep going."

She did and gasped as she turned another page. I knew exactly what she was looking at. The different types of digimon gave way to dozens of drawings of just one type-- renamon. "You haven't seen anything yet." I told her. "Keep going."

She turned the next couple of pages hesitantly and then stopped and gently touched one particular drawing, tracing the lines with a claw tip. A soft "oh" of understanding escaped her lips. The drawings of renamon changed over the pages, slightly altering more and more features in each one until--

"It's you." Renamon whispered.

"So it looks like I really _was_ made for you," I tried to make light of the revelation, "or _from_ you-- or-- something."

She silently handed the sketchbook back to me and absentmindedly stroked my hand as I took it. "I-- I need to think about this, Coyomon."

"Of course," I said, standing up as I slipped the book into my vest. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you about it sooner. I'll be at my tower if you--"

She reached up and grabbed my hand and pulled me back down. "Don't you dare walk away from me now, _flea-bag_," she growled, playfully using Rika's pet name for me. "I do my best thinking when I'm wrapped in the arms of my friend-- my lover-- my-- other half."

We lay there all night, silently watching the moon's reflection travel across the koi pond in the garden below.

--

We went hunting the next day with Rika.

Unless another Ultimate deva showed up, there weren't any digimon around that had a prayer of standing up to the two of us. So, to make the fights a bit more of a challenge, we took turns-- alternating between fighting and yelling 'helpful' comments from the sidelines.

"Would you just _SHUT UP_!" a cyclomon who had been fighting Renamon screamed at me. (I had been making fun of his single big eyeball.)

Renamon slapped him-- she carefully didn't do any real damage but it sure surprised him. "Don't yell at my boyfriend!" she snipped, managing to sound just like a ditzy schoolgirl.

"Wh-- What?" the poor bewildered digimon stammered. I was laughing my furry butt off and even Rika had a snorting fit trying not to chuckle.

Renamon slapped him again. "You _so_ heard me! He's a rully, _rully_ nice guy! You should _totally_ apologize!" By this time I was laughing so hard I could barely stand and Rika couldn't stifle her giggles any more.

The cyclomon took the easy way out and charged Renamon, screaming. She pivoted gracefully and slammed him with a back kick that broke him in half. "Apology accepted," she smirked and batted her eyes at me.

"You-- are-- amazing!" I gasped between laughs.

"Well," Renamon purred in her normal silky voice, "I can be a little goofy once in a while, too, can't I?"

"Just don't goof around during a serious fight," Rika admonished her, still grinning.

"Of course not, Rika." Renamon said solemnly.

I was still laughing.

Rika glanced at both of us and her expression went thoughtful. I was sure she was going to ask Renamon something but she finally turned away and said, "If these fights aren't enough of a challenge for you guys, I'd better hunt up something really nasty." She unsnapped her digivice from her belt and began a scan.

We covered the rooftops as Rika strolled along the streets, doing an occasional scan for wild ones. Renamon walked along side me for a while, watching me out of the corner of her eye.

"What?" I asked.

She gave me a friendly hip bump. "You were right."

"Of course I was," I answered automatically. "Uh-- about what?"

"Psyching out an opponent," she grinned. "You don't think I came up with that little skit on the spur of the moment, do you? Not really my style."

"No," I admitted, "but that's why it was so hilarious!"

She bumped me again. "And _effective_. That cyclomon wasn't anywhere near defeat. Ordinarily, I think I would have had to throw another dozen blows to beat him but he got so confused and angry he left himself wide open for a full-power direct strike."

I laughed again at the memory. "And the _look_ on his face when he fragmented! You rock, _girlfriend!_" I bumped her back.

Renamon was smug about it for the rest of the day.

--

"Renamon? Coyomon?" Rika called from below the tree where we were lounging the next morning.

"Yes Rika?" Renamon answered.

"Yep?" I called, a little less respectfully.

"You guys have been fighting a lot lately and I thought--" Rika hesitated.

"Yes?" Renamon prompted.

"Well, you might need a little boost-- so--" she pulled a couple of bottles out of her pack and tossed them up to us. "Anyway-- here." Still a bit flustered, she hurried off.

We looked at the labels on the bottles: They were energy drinks.

"Thank you, Rika!" Renamon called after her.

"Yeah, thanks!" I said to her retreating back.

"Don't you dare laugh until she's out of earshot!" Renamon hissed at me from the corner of her mouth.

"I wouldn't dream of it." I said, quite sincerely.

--


	15. Livestock

--

--

Chapter 15

Livestock

--

The rest of the gang filled us in about the cause of the blackouts when they got back from camp.

"No kidding?" I asked incredulously. "It was a giant _chicken_?"

"Well-- yeah, basically--" began Takato.

"A giant chicken and I missed it!" I smacked myself in the forehead. "It would have been _glorious_!"

"Guilmon handled it just fine." Takato said, a bit defensively.

"Oh, sure, sure--" I said, "I don't doubt my little buddy whomped the feathers off of him. But _c'mon! _Chickens are a coyote's natural prey-- they just go together-- it's the perfect match!"

Everybody was pretty much shrugging off my rant except Guilmon who had a thoughtful look on his face. "So," he asked me, "what's _my_ natural prey?"

"Well-- you're a dragon, so, traditionally, you would eat--" I turned and looked at Rika. Renamon slapped the back of my head-- _hard_. "Bread!" I yipped, "Dragons eat bread!"

Guilmon's face broke out into a big grin. "Oh, good! I like bread!"

"Jeeze, I was only kidding," I whispered to Renamon after Guilmon had run off after the others. She just folded her arms across her chest and gave me the stink-eye.

--

I was still grumbling about missing out on the chicken deva a couple of days later when I got a second chance at a classic match-up.

Renamon and I were shadowing the kids as they searched through the area where all the big electronic stores were located, looking for a special card or something. I didn't really care why we were there. I was just having a good time jumping around the rooftops with my lovely vixen.

Then we felt the energy pulse as a digital field blossomed into existence. It was a big one.

"Feel that power!" I said to Renamon. "I bet it's a deva! Poor Guilmon's gonna be the one to miss out on this one!" Terriermon could pass as a stuffed toy when out in public but Guilmon would draw too much attention even if he were explained away as a kid in a costume. Takato had left him behind.

As soon as the mist started to clear we saw _two_ rampaging digimon. When I could make out exactly what they were my grin nearly split my head in two. "Hellooo, _mutton_!" I growled.

"Coyomon," Renamon said as we flashed down the side of the skyscraper to Rika's side, "please don't get into close combat with these things! You can use your special attacks to support Terriermon and I, but I don't want you to risk yourself needlessly."

I didn't answer.

We landed next to Rika but before I could phase in, Renamon grabbed me by the shoulders and turned me to face her, urgency in her voice. "Please, Coyomon," she let go of my shoulders and placed her hands on either side of my face, stepping close to me. "Please lover-- do I have to beg you?"

I took hold of her wrists and pulled her hands away from my face. I couldn't say anything but I nodded my assent. Renamon cast me a worried glance and then we shifted into sync with the rest of the world.

Vajramon and Pajiramon. They were huge, centauroid versions of an ox and a sheep-- and they were totally trashing several city blocks of storefronts.

"First a chicken and now these guys?" I sneered. "Did someone forget to shut the gate at the Digital Dimension's county fair?"

Nobody laughed.

Renamon threw a Diamond Storm at Vajramon as an opener. He drew one of his twin swords and deflected it with a spinning block. Terriermon went after Pajiramon, the sheep, and nearly got stomped. I stood beside Rika and glowered. There were a couple more exchanges of blows and banter and then things started to get serious.

"Our orders were to vanquish them and load their data!" The ox rumbled.

_'Orders' is it? Whose lapdog are you?_ I wondered.

The fluffy one unslung a crossbow prepared to skewer a prostrate Terriermon.

_Time for me to go to work_, I thought sourly and I shot a Fang Flurry at Pajiramon's head just as I heard Henry gasp in alarm and Calumon yell in dismay. (I hadn't known the little creampuff was there until then.)

My attack didn't seem to do any damage but it spoiled the sheep's aim and Terriermon was suddenly enveloped in a whirling energy vortex.

_About damned time_, I thought and turned my attention back to Renamon's fight. She and Vajramon were still dancing around each other trading insults. I readied an Earth Splitter attack (just in case) and then I started to listen to what they were actually saying. Their banter was starting to sound suspiciously like flirting.

"Ooh-- Feisty!" The big side of beef said with a smarmy grin.

"You have no idea--" Renamon purred back at him

"Coyomon!" Rika snapped at me, "Would you stop growling? It's distracting!"

"Sure thing, Rika," said through clenched teeth. I took careful aim, summoned all the energy I could, and did a forward flip, triggering my Earth Splitter just as both of my paws slammed into the pavement. A widening crack raced through the asphalt toward Vajramon-- or more specifically, toward Vajramon's _hindquarters_. When the rip in the street reached a spot right between his hind legs, huge chunks of asphalt and earth erupted upwards in a violent fountain. He roared and skipped sideways, forgetting whatever clever line he'd been about to deliver.

_How do you like _that_, Romeo_? I grinned to myself.

"Insect!" he bellowed and drew his second sword.

Renamon darted in and hit him with another Diamond Storm-- just as ineffective as the others, but it turned his attention back to her. I had used so much energy on that special that I was feeling a bit light-headed. I was also feeling a bit disgusted with myself. I'd lost my temper and used my best shot before the fight had even really begun.

_At least Gargomon should be doing well_, I thought and glanced over to check on him.

Pajiramon was dancing on his head.

I looked for Henry and he and Takato were hunched over Gargomon's digivice, fumbling uselessly with handfuls of cards. Pajiramon jumped off Gargomon's motionless form and raised her crossbow. The tamers were still arguing about which card to slash next. _Oh, suffering Tesla! And I don't even have enough umph left for a Fang Flurry!_

I didn't think, I just leaped. Arrows are easy to deflect if you catch them far enough from their target. Only a little change in direction and they'll miss-- _if_ you catch them early enough. I spun my staff into a blur as I jumped between Gargomon and the crossbow. Pajiramon fired and the shock of my staff slamming into the shafts of the twin crossbow bolts spun me around and knocked me to my knees. I heard the tamers and Calumon yell in dismay but I could see the bolts had missed Gargomon.

I tried to stand but something was wrong. My left side felt funny. I looked down and realized that I had deflected the arrows just enough to miss Gargomon-- but not quite enough to miss _me_. My whole left side was sliced to ribbons.

I felt a sharp shudder of phase energy run through me, like nothing I'd ever felt before. At least it didn't hurt. I knew I was about to fragment and the thought that I'd never look into my fox's loving sapphire eyes again filled me with despair. I convulsed and my back arched as the energy whirled around me, tearing at my skin. My outer textured layers peeled away revealing the glowing blue nurbs that defined my body. The lines began to writhe and reform into a new configuration.

_Holy, freaking Tesla! I'm not dying-- I'm _digivolving! _I wonder what I'll--_ and then it flooded into me; all the knowledge and capabilities of my new body. _Cool!_

I spun on four strong paws and shook my long, powerful beast's body. I could hear Henry and Takato reading information from their digivices.

"Kaliskamon," said Takato, "Champion level."

"At your service!" I sung out.

"Rapidmon," read Henry, "Ultimate."

_Say what?_ I looked up. Gargomon had made the jump too! "Looking good, pal!" I yelled to the weird cross between bug, bunny and robot that he had become.

"You're not so bad yourself, fuzzy! I like the swirly colors!" He yelled back.

I looked back along my side but only watched the moving color patterns for a moment. I had more important things to do. I turned to Pajiramon who was frantically reloading her crossbow.

I stalked slowly forward, enjoying the feel of massive strength in my shoulders and hips. Pajiramon finished reloading and sighted her crossbow on my chest. I didn't stop advancing. I dug the long black hooks of my claws into the pavement just to feel them sink into something.

Pajiramon stomped her hooves nervously. "What are you smiling for?" she demanded.

I grinned even more. "You're a big ol' sheep-- I'm a big ol' coyote-- you figure it out, _lambchops_."

Her eyes went wide with fear and I knew I'd won the fight in that instant. All I needed to do was finish it. She fired. I jinked sideways just enough to let the bolts pass by me and leaped. I crashed into her chest and the force of the impact slammed her backwards, skittering and slewing sideways on the broken glass and debris that carpeted the street. I lunged after her. Energy surged from my core and into my fangs for a Fire Bite attack and my red-hot teeth tore into Pajiramon's flank, setting the wool around my jaws on fire. I wrenched at her with all the strength of my neck and shoulders and threw her through a shattered storefront. She screamed and thrashed around in the wreckage of the store while trying to regain her feet. I spat out my sizzling mouthful and gathered myself to leap.

"Allow me!" cried Rapidmon, and blasted a Rapid Fire attack into her squirming form. Pajiramon burst apart and we pulled in as much of her data as we could while turning to face Vajramon.

The ox had abandoned his halfhearted dance with Renamon and was charging us.

"Ooh, ooh, let me do it!" pleaded Rapidmon.

He was so enthusiastic I couldn't help but let him play. Besides, the satisfying taste of roast mutton was still in my mouth. "Be my guest," I said with a gracious nod.

His Tri-Beam attack was certainly impressive. The big side of beef tried to dodge it and I thought for an instant he'd succeed but he fragmented and vanished almost instantly. He was gone so quickly none of us had any time to absorb any of his data.

Rapidmon landed beside the tamers and I strolled slowly over to the group, making the thick muscles in my legs surge and ripple. Yes, I was showing off for Renamon-- can you blame me?

"We should get out of here," Takato said.

Sirens announced the approach of police and ambulances from just about every direction. People started to peer out of their hiding places and some went to help others trapped in the rubble.

"I wonder how the spooks are going to manage to cover up _this_ one?" I snorted. Three teenage boys were staring at us from behind the wreckage of a sales display. I turned to them and said, "This is all a dream. When you wake up you'll be back in Kansas with Auntie Em." They grimaced in fear and ducked back down behind the rack of smashed TVs. I shrugged.

Rapidmon scooped up Henry and Takato and took off. I lay down in front of Renamon and Rika. "Would you two lovely ladies care for a ride?"

Renamon lifted Rika up onto my back and hopped on behind her. I leaped a wrecked car and sprinted off down the avenue. I couldn't risk acrobatics with Rika clinging to my back so I shifted out of phase when I hit the big traffic jam and danced between the crowded vehicles. Rika gasped and her grip tightened in my mane. _Oops! Hasn't Renamon ever taken her out of sync before?_ Renamon kicked me with her heels like I was a misbehaving horse. _I guess not._

I suppose that the way things looked, with all the solid matter being a semi-transparent blue shot through with the multi-colored tracery of all the types of energy flowing around, took some getting used to. I thought it was quite beautiful in its own way. Or maybe being able to look through objects and people, seeing all their inner workings, was what disturbed Rika. I carefully avoided stepping _through_ anything.

I spotted a parking garage and zipped down to a lower level where there was nobody to see us phase in.

"Sorry about that, Rika" I apologized before Renamon could say anything, "I didn't mean to startle you. I should have given you a heads-up before phasing out like that. I just wanted to get us away from all that mess as quickly as possible."

"No-- it's okay," Rika said a little shakily as she slid down my side. "I was just-- surprised is all." She stood for a moment and took a deep breath. "I'm going to ride the subway out to the Gaiemmae station and walk home from there."

"We will meet you outside the station, Rika." Renamon said to her as she walked away toward the elevators.

Once the elevator doors had closed, Renamon turned and glared at me.

"I'm sorry! I just didn't think--"

Renamon tapped me on the forehead with a claw. "You have plenty of brain-power to think up jokes and games! Couldn't you have used a little bit of it to consider what a phase shift might have done to a human body?"

"But Danny and I used to do it all the time for fun!" I protested. "If he lost contact with me, he'd snap right back into sync-- no harm done."

"Oh--" she said. "I'm sorry, I just assumed--"

I nuzzled her gently. "I understand. You're just looking out for your tamer. Believe me, I'd never risk a hair on her head-- that kid is one in a billion."

Renamon smiled up into my face. "Yes, she is, isn't she?" She put her arms around my neck and rested her head on my mane. We just stood there like that for a long while. Eventually Renamon let go and stepped back to take a good look at my new form. I stretched luxuriously and made the muscles ripple down my body, chased by flowing streaks of color that danced from my head to my tail. I concentrated and the swirling lines on my torso briefly formed a taijitu symbol in gold and red.

"Smug bastard," Renamon said fondly.

I was about to reply when headlights washed over us and a screech of brakes assaulted our ears. The driver of the car ground the gears, frantically trying to find reverse and then burned rubber off his tires as he let the clutch pop. He missed the opening to the ramp he had just come down and smashed his car, trunk-first into a concrete pylon. The terrified man then jumped out of his wrecked car and ran up the ramp, yelling, "Monsters, monsters!"

I sighed. "Roof?"

Renamon nodded, "Let's."

--


	16. Talking

--

--

Chapter 16

Talking

--

We leaped across the rooftops, heading out from Akihabara. All my new strength came at a price: I was slower and less agile than before. But I was more than willing to pay that price to gain a form that was ideal for close combat. I wouldn't ever have to sit on the sidelines again.

Renamon playfully used me as a springboard when I was halfway between two buildings and that gave me an idea.

"Up for a new game?" I asked.

"As long as it doesn't make us late."

"Okay," I grinned, "hop onto my back and stand just behind my shoulders."

She did so and asked "Now what?"

"Simple," I told her. "Just try and stay there." And I leaped forward with all my strength.

Renamon's claws dug into my back on either side of my spine and she shifted her balance with lightning speed. "No fair using your hands!" I shouted back to her as I did a jump-turn off a building.

She held on through jumps and turns and sharp zigzags. I made a little course change just so I could watch her in the mirrored windows of an insurance building. She kept her balance perfectly, isolating her upper body from the sharp little changes in speed and direction by using her powerful legs as shock absorbers. She leaned into the turns, arms outstretched, her long tail streaming out behind her like a banner.

I pulled one last trick before we left the district's tallest buildings behind. I built up all the speed I could and then raced straight up the side of a skyscraper. I didn't try to keep contact with the structure but let my speed carry me as far as possible before I slowed and drifted away from the side of the building, weightless as I hit the top of the arc. Renamon held on easily, just using the strength of her legs to grip me with her paws. I arced over and fell, using my tail as a rudder to steer myself toward the parapet of the neighboring building. I hit, absorbing the impact, and leaped outward over the expressway and toward the subway station, Renamon with me all the way.

I skidded into the parking lot, letting my hind paws slide around in a 180 spin. Smiling with exhilaration, Renamon hopped down from my back. "That was fun!" she beamed.

"You're a natural at coyote surfing." I told her. "We need to get you an aloha-print swimsuit to wear for next time."

"Ha!" she barked out a laugh. "Not a chance, lover-boy!"

"Awww--" I let my ears and tail droop and tried to sound horribly disappointed.

Renamon shook her head and reached up to pat my cheek. "Trust me, Kaliskamon, the cute puppy act doesn't work so well for you when you're as big as a truck."

--

We fell into step on either side of Rika when she came out of the subway. Renamon whispered to her, "We are with you Rika."

It was a joy just to walk silently alongside my beautiful lover and her tamer in the gathering twilight and watch all the energy trails sparkling through the landscape. When we reached the quieter streets, Renamon and I phased in.

Rika glanced at me. "Still in battle-tank mode? Aren't you going to de-digivolve?"

"Uh-- I don't know." I hadn't given it much thought. I looked to Renamon. "How do I do that?"

Renamon smiled. "You'll use up energy until you reach a threshold and then-- _poof_! Back to normal. Once you've done it a few times it will be easy but this first time may take a while."

Rika chuckled. "Growlmon took so long his first time that Takato panicked."

Renamon chuckled at the memory and she and Rika told me the story of Takato trying to hide his partner by painting him with camouflage colors. We all had a good laugh at that.

"Maybe I could provide my own camouflage," I said thoughtfully and made my fur colors go all blotchy.

"Only if you were trying to hide in a paint factory," Rika snorted.

"Or maybe in front of a neon sign," Renamon grinned.

I let my colors go back to their normal swirling patterns and stuck my tongue out at them both.

"Don't point that thing at me unless you--" Renamon began and then glanced down at Rika, "--um-- just _don't_, okay?"

I winked at her over Rika's head. "Yes, Renamon," I said in a dangerously meek voice.

--

We were nearly at Rika's house when Vajramon appeared in the street in front of us.

"You're alive!" Rika gasped.

"Son of a--" I knew there had been something weird about his fragmentation. He _had_ dodged Rapidmon's Tri-Beam attack after all.

"You." He rumbled, pointing imperiously at Renamon.

"I understand," she nodded calmly and walked forward.

"What's happening?" Rika asked in confusion, "Renamon where are you going?"

"He wants to talk," Renamon told her with a glance over her shoulder.

I took three long steps and interposed myself between Renamon and the big side of beef. I crouched, my mane flaring and my hackles rising. "And what if we'd rather _fight_?" I growled at him as wisps of steam began to rise from my bared fangs.

Renamon put a hand on my shoulder. "No, Kaliskamon, I think I should hear what he has to say."

"She can talk about whatever it is here!" Rika said.

"_Silence_, you ignorant human!" Vajramon spit the words at her.

My low growl became a full-throated snarl of rage and my muscles bunched in preparation for a leap at his throat.

"No!" Renamon snapped as she grabbed a fistful of my mane and yanked hard. I relaxed only a fraction. She stepped out in front of me and said to her tamer, "Rika, I need you to let me do this. Please trust me." To me she just gave a look, but it was one that was full of meaning.

Rika was more than confused by Renamon's behavior but she was willing to trust her partner's judgment. I had no idea what was going through Renamon's mind but I didn't want to throw a monkey wrench into her plans. We watched Renamon and beefy boy walk away into the night--

--just far enough so that I could follow without being seen.

I phased out and slid through shadows after them. My new form wasn't built for stealth and though I tried my best, I knew I wasn't all that well hidden. Sure enough, about a half-minute later, Vajramon paused and flicked an ear back in my direction. I went totally still but it was too late.

"Put your hand on the hilt of my sword," he told Renamon. She did so and they both dissolved into bits. Out of phase as I was, I could instantly see the difference between this and a death burst but I couldn't tell where they had gone. I'd lost them.

I sprinted the few blocks back to Rika's house and called softly at her door. The door slid open quickly and Rika looked out, glanced to either side of me, and let her shoulders slump when she didn't see her partner. She was holding her digivice in one hand and its screen was empty except for the red blip that indicated my presence.

--

I stayed at Rika's that night. Without Renamon around, she needed someone to protect her. That's what I told myself, anyway. I knew that when Renamon returned, the first place she'd probably go would be to Rika. In the morning Rika refused to allow me to shadow her. She and her mother were headed somewhere she didn't want to talk about and she _definitely_ didn't want me tagging along.

"I promise you'll be the second one to know when she comes back." Rika told me. "Go play in the park or something."

As if I would be in the mood for play when Renamon was off who-knows-where with that overgrown hamburger.

I checked in with Terriermon and Guilmon. Nobody knew anything. I was still in my Champion form and too big to comfortably perch on my cell tower so I eventually did end up at the park. I settled into a grove of trees to wait and torture myself with wild imaginings of what might be happening to Renamon.

An hour of so later I felt a digimon approaching and I sat up, my ears pricking hopefully. It was Impmon. I flopped back down disgustedly.

"Hey there, Kaliskamon," he called out to me, "how's tricks? Lookin' good with the new-- _look_-- there," he finished lamely making a spinning motion with one hand to indicate my colorful hide.

_What the heck?_ I thought. _Why is he trying to be nice to me? Hell, what's he doing talking to me at all? It's not like we've ever exchanged a civil word before._ But there was nothing else to do, so I let him talk.

"So--" he continued, "--you digivolved, hah?"

"Yep," I drawled, wondering where all this was going.

"Good, good-- um--" Finally his patience gave out and he blurted the question he'd wanted to ask all along. "So, how'd ya _do_ it?"

I grinned. It all made sense now. Impmon had always said digimon didn't need humans to digivolve and I'd gone and proved it for him. And what did he want more than anything else in the world? Yeah. At any other time I might have teased him or made up a bunch of ludicrous and embarrassing tasks that would be 'guaranteed' to make him digivolve but I wasn't in a joking mood.

"Honestly, Impmon," I sighed, "I have no idea."

"_WHAT_?" he shouted. "Don't give me that baloney! You know how to do it and you're gonna _tell_ me!"

I wondered briefly if he was insane. He was barely as big as one of my paws yet there he stood, threatening me. I shrugged. _Might as well humor him._ "All I can do is tell you what happened at the time," I said.

"Yeah? So spill the beans, already!" Impmon listened attentively.

"The damned diva shot me with her crossbow-- nearly tore me in half. I thought for sure I was dead," I told him.

"Yeah, so?"

"So maybe the trick is to get very nearly killed. Maybe digivolving is some kind of survival mechanism that kicks in only in desperate circumstances."

"Naw, that's _stupid_!" he sneered. "It's gotta be something else!"

He was really starting to piss me off. "Well," I said as I rose to my full height, towering over him, "there's one good way to test my theory." I pushed energy into a Fire Bite attack and let my jaws gape open, revealing glowing hot fangs that sizzled and steamed. "Hold still. This is going to hurt a bit."

I had no idea he could run that fast.

--

Toward evening I felt a sudden pressure build up inside me and then fade away as a tingling sensation ran through my body. I was Coyomon again. I didn't know whether to de disappointed or not.

_If I did it once, I can do it again_, I told myself. _I just have to remember what it felt like and I will be ready for the next time._ Hopefully getting nearly killed wasn't really the key to digivolving.

I checked my vest. All my stuff was still there though it had been inaccessible to me when I had been Kaliskamon. I had worried a bit about that. I would have hated to loose the few mementos I had left of Danny. And my staff, of course.

Even though I knew they would have told me right away, I was thinking about visiting the other digimon to see if they'd heard anything about Renamon when the wave of phase energy washed over me. There was no mistaking that power: It had to be him.

My first instinct was to race for the spot where he was bio-emerging but it wasn't anywhere near Rika's house and I knew she would be just as worried as I was. I ran to the Nonaka home. As I got there Rika was just coming through the gate on her bicycle.

"There's a faster way." I told her as I landed in the street beside her and held out my arms.

She hesitated and then got off the bike and shoved it back through the gate. "Right, but don't do that phase thing, okay?

"I won't," I said as I scooped her up and sprinted down the street. "I don't give a damn who sees us."

--


	17. Things Fall Apart

--

--

Chapter 17

Things Fall Apart

--

_The kid's got courage_, I thought to myself. Rika had only flinched once or twice as I raced through traffic, often missing cars by a hair's breadth. I was traveling too fast for the drivers to get a good look at us or there would have been uncounted fender-benders all the way to the National Stadium.

I admit we could have snuck quietly in on the ground floor but I always like to have the high ground if possible, and Rika had been pretty fearless so far, so I went straight up the outside of the stadium to the roof. Rika's hands tightened in my ruff but she didn't let out so much as a peep.

Vajramon was standing on the field looking up at Renamon who stood on the first deck above him. I felt a surge of relief at the sight of her. _That's my girl_, I thought, _you've got the high ground, too._

I jumped down to the highest row of seats and started to put Rika down but she insisted I get her closer to the field. I circled a bit to be well behind Vajramon and went several levels lower before Rika was satisfied.

"I still can't hear what they're saying," Rika whispered to me.

I put a finger to my lips and then pointed to my ears which were swiveled all the way forward. Rika got the message and settled down to watch.

The big side of beef was offering Renamon a place in the army of the Digimon Sovereign. _Well what do you know? _I thought. _There really _is_ a plot to take over the world._ Renamon played coy, drawing more information out of him.

Guilmon, Terriermon and their tamers arrived on the field below us just as I was starting to realize something. Renamon had been gone for nearly an entire day and Vajramon was just getting around to making his pitch now. _What have they been doing all this time?_

Beefy Boy was laying it on thick about how strong and worthy Renamon was. I certainly didn't disagree but I didn't like hearing it come out of his big fat mouth.

Rika slapped my hand.

I looked down and saw that I'd shredded the back of one of the stadium seats. "I've had enough of this crap," I growled and leaped down onto the field. I reasoned that if I could call on my inner strength to power my special attacks, then there must be a way to do the same to trigger a digivolution. _It's about time for Vajramon to get that smarmy mouth of his slapped around. _I summoned up my core energy and tried to recreate the configuration I had felt just before my change to Kaliskamon.

Then Calumon showed up.

Of course he knew something big was going on. Any digimon within fifty kilometers would have felt the burst of phase energy when Vajramon bio-emerged. Most of them had sense enough to stay away from an Ultimate deva the size of a moving van but Calumon was something special. 'Special' as in Special Olympics: He hopped down onto the field and asked Vajramon to play with him!

Vajramon's reaction was completely predictable to everyone but Calumon. Beefy Boy stomped pits in the field the size of garbage can lids trying to crush the life out of Calumon who ran shrieking in circles.

I didn't have time to mess around with inner energies if I wanted to save the little guy so I just sprinted after the big lumbering ox, anticipating which way Calumon would dodge next. I came in from the side and pounced for him, intending to scoop him up and roll out of Vajramon's way, but the dimwitted little bastard saw me coming and dodged _me! _

"Calumon, you MORON," I bellowed as I did a handspring and a twist to land on my feet just out of Vajramon's path, "I'm trying to help you!"

By that time Guilmon and Terriermon had charged out onto the field and phase vortices had begun to form around them. I would have loved to have concentrated on the feel of those energies and tried to understand their structure but I was busy avoiding Vajramon's nicely executed draw-and-cut that was intended to remove my head from the rest of me.

Growlmon and Gargomon piled into Big 'n' Beefy one after the other and were beaten back almost immediately. Vajramon was unbelievably strong and I knew I'd be useless in the fight unless I could digivolve. I got out of the way and tried to focus my energy again.

Renamon threw a Diamond Storm which Vajramon blocked with a sweep of his blades. He began to bellow about betrayal and all that blah, blah, blah. _Pompous ass_.

My legs trembled as the energy I was gathering tried to configure itself into an Earth Splitter. I fought with it even as I reached deep inside myself for more. Then the tiny red sparkles that were the first signs of a Fang Flurry attack started to form in the air in front of me. I tried to redirect the energy again but it was quickly slipping out of my control. I could only choose to aim the attack or let it fly off randomly.

_What-- you-- need, Beefy Boy_, I said silently to Vajramon as I struggled to bring my hands into line with his chunky hindquarters, _is a good-- bite-- in the butt. _Releasing the attack was like pushing against a supposedly locked door only to find it open and unresisting. I nearly fell on my face.

Vajramon was still preaching at Renamon and realized his danger an instant too late. He started to leap away from the torrent of spinning red teeth, but that move meant he had to crouch with his hind legs first. His massive thighs were just flexing for the jump when the Fang Flurry tore into him. He roared in rage and staggered sideways, snarling in pain.

Growlmon immediately launched a Pyro Blaster that Vajramon just barely managed to deflect and then charged in on him. I just stood there gasping and trying to gather enough energy to stop my legs from shaking-- but I was grinning my head off.

Growlmon took a terrific hit and tumbled over and over across the field. Vajramon wound up for a downward chop at him but had to turn and use both his blades to block Gargomon's Gargo Laser attack.

_Maybe we can beat this guy_, I said to myself. Then Vajramon launched a Deva Blade attack that smashed into Gargomon and slammed him into the field. _--or maybe not._

I desperately sought more strength within myself and managed to stop shaking. I could feel that I had just enough power for another Fang Flurry but I knew it wouldn't be much use. Even my supercharged version had only done a small amount of damage. Growlmon and Gargomon were out of the fight. They didn't even have enough strength left to stand up. I _had_ to digivolve!

The wash of phase energy told me that someone was managing the trick that eluded me and I looked up to see Kyuubimon emerging from a fading egg-shaped vortex. She launched a Fox Tail Inferno and followed the bright ghost flames toward their target.

_Damn it!_ I raged as I watched Vajramon scatter the grinning ghost flames with his sword. He caught Kyuubimon around the neck as she hurtled into him and crushed her in a painful embrace.

"So beautiful-- and so lost," he sneered at her, wrenching at her neck. He flung her down and kept talking but I wasn't paying attention any more. I whipped my staff out of my vest and flung it at his eyes as I charged him.

Here's a clue: When somebody throws a weapon that's not meant to be thrown-- they're _desperate_.

But there was nothing else I could do. One of Vajramon's swords whipped around and met my staff-- cutting it neatly in two. The pieces went spinning off into the dark. I launched my Fang Flurry just before I leaped for Vajramon's throat. It looked weak in comparison to my last one but I had aimed it right behind his knee. I thought it might just be enough to lame him.

His other blade swept down and scattered the red hooked particles harmlessly away-- but his defensive blocks had left me just enough of a gap to reach him. I kicked him viciously in the throat and punched at his eye as I grabbed on to his ear with my free hand. He couldn't get at me with his swords, as close to his head as I was. He tried to bring a pommel up to smash at me but one of his own horns got in the way. I kicked again and again as well as I could while he did his best to shake me off.

Vajramon was so distracted that Kyuubimon got an unimpeded flying kick at the other side of his head. She spun and slammed her hind paws into his jaw, making him stagger and curse. Unfortunately, his head snapped around so quickly that I lost my hold and went flying. Kyuubimon bounced off the field and passed behind him, raking her fore claws across the back of his neck. He whipped his swords in twin arcs and hit her with a Deva Blade attack, throwing her back to crash against the concrete wall below the first tier of seats.

I staggered to my feet, panting and, again, desperately searching for the way to trigger a digivolution. I was concentrating so hard that at the first pulse of energy I thought I had succeeded. But the phase energy was coming from outside of me.

The whirling phase energy egg was at the base of the wall where Kyuubimon had fallen. When she emerged she was a physically imposing sight but I felt sure there was even more to her than met the eye.

"Taomon," Rika read from her digivice as I used my last scraps of energy to bump myself a fraction of a degree out of phase. I just caught a glimpse of the shining aura surrounding Taomon before I fell back into sync again but it confirmed my suspicions. Vajramon was about to have a very unpleasant time.

Vajramon was oblivious. He even chided Taomon for digivolving into a form that looked more human, as if that had anything to do with it. All the human Taoist priests who ever lived couldn't have summoned as much radiant spirit as I had seen in my momentary look at her aura.

Taomon tried out her new powers. Vajramon managed to block little red pieces of paper that comprised her Thousand Spells attack and charged her, swinging wildly. She slapped his blades aside with her sleeves, floating serenely away from his lumbering rush. When he threw his Deva Blade attack she rose above it effortlessly.

Beefy Boy roared in frustration and flung both of his swords at her.

Here's a clue: When somebody throws a weapon that's not meant to be thrown-- yeah-- you know.

Taomon serenely let the blades pass under her.

"Once I've finished you, I'll take care of your pathetic tamer!" Vajramon snarled. Was he trying to rattle her or was he really _that_ clueless?

"No one threatens Rika," Taomon told him. She slid a huge calligraphy brush out of her sleeve and drew a glowing character in the air, which flew down and settled onto Vajramon's chest.

"The Talisman of Light," she told him as he yelled in disbelief. The Talisman's spirit flowed into Vajramon and he burst into fragments-- real disassociated bits of data, not the phony ones he had used to trick us before.

Rika ran out to her partner. It was the huge Taomon who bent to greet her but it was Renamon who folded her into a joyous hug.

"Wow," I said, turning away to look for the pieces of my staff.

"You can say that again," Terriermon quipped as Henry lifted him off the ground and settled him on his accustomed perch.

Takato saw what I was doing and stopped me. "I saw the pieces of your stick dissolve, Coyomon. Sorry."

I shrugged. "No big deal."

Guilmon reached out and patted my hand silently.

We all hurried to leave the stadium and the partners went their separate ways. Rika lingered on the pedestrian avenue across from the stadium for a while, talking with Renamon who perched on top of the monument there. I watched from the roof of the stadium.

_Always seeking the high ground, _I told myself, smiling ruefully.

Rika walked away not realizing that Renamon would follow, unseen, watching over her until she was safely home.

I followed, too, far enough back to be unobtrusive. It was a long, slow walk and I had lots of time to think. Too much time.

--

I sat on our usual rooftop until Renamon reappeared, slipping out through the back wall of Rika's bedroom. _Well_, I thought grimly_, it's showtime_. I jumped down beside her, trying to sound as cheerful as possible.

"Hey there, beautiful! Rika all tucked in?"

Renamon stood still. She looked down at the street for a moment and then away toward the city skyline, as if she found something interesting there. "Yes," she said quietly.

My heart sank. That missing day stood between us like a wall. I turned away from her. "Uh-- why don't we take a stroll around the neighborhood," I suggested and began to walk very slowly down the street. I thought for a moment she wasn't going to follow but then I heard the nearly silent touch of her claws on the pavement behind me.

"I have to say," I said in a happy voice that was completely phony, "I think a gal who can kill with calligraphy is one of the most impressive things I've ever seen. Just remind me to be careful when opening any love letters from you, okay?"

"It was all because of Rika," she said in an unhappy monotone, "she used one of those mysterious blue cards that have been turning up lately."

I snorted. "She only flipped the switch. _You're_ the shining light!"

"_Stop it_!" Renamon hissed. I turned. She was standing with her fists clenched and her eyes squeezed shut. "Stop pretending you don't know!"

I struggled to control my breathing. "I--," I took another deep breath, "I _don't_ know. I'm just guessing." I couldn't look at her. I turned my eyes to the horizon. "A fanatic like that is always distrustful. For him to have enough confidence in you to reveal his secrets must have taken--"

"I went with him," Renamon interrupted me, "to his palace in the Digital Dimension."

_Palace?_ I thought, hopelessly, _Oh, this just gets better and better._

She wrapped her arms around herself and continued, "I lied to him to gain his trust. I lied to him in _every_ way possible."

I nodded sadly. "You did what you needed to do. We now have some idea what we're up against. You've given us all a much better chance of surviving the coming fight."

"Then why do I feel _guilty_?"

I could have said a hundred different comforting things then-- and Renamon would have seen through all of them. So I said what I was thinking. I should have kept my stupid mouth shut.

"If it wasn't for Rika, would you have joined him?"

Renamon gasped like I had slapped her. Then she got angry. "How can you ask me that? How _dare_ you ask me that?"

I just looked at her. "You haven't said 'no'."

Renamon's lips wrinkled back from her fangs and her clawed hands tensed into hooks. I thought she was going to attack me then-- but she did something far worse. She raked her hand through her ruff, snagging the chain of the taijitu necklace and snapping it. She flung the necklace to the ground and leaped away from me, phasing out at the same time.

After a long while I walked away, leaving the little black and white symbol where it fell.

--


	18. Kunomon

--

Chapter 18

Kunomon

--

I was standing on top of the Sanyo building trying to figure out what to do with the pile of crap that my life had become.

I wasn't having any notable success.

"Hey there, handsome," came the voice from behind me.

I reflexively spun into a fighting crouch-- and froze. It was Renamon. I started to relax and then snapped back into my stance as I noticed the differences. It _wasn't_ Renamon-- not _my_ Renamon.

She was slightly shorter but leaner and _harder_ looking. Her eyes were more of a violet color and there was a savage glint in them. I snapped out of phase for an instant and saw her ragged and unsettled aura that didn't look anything like the cool blue glow of _my_ Renamon's.

She just stood there, one hand on her hip and head tilted slightly to one side, watching me as I took her measure. "Like what you see, handsome?" Her smile had quite a bit of sneer in it.

"Who are you?" I asked. I straightened up but still kept myself ready to react to a sudden attack.

"I'm a wild one--" she smirked, "--just like _you_."

"I mean, what's your name?"

"Renamon," she told me. "That's the only name _humans_ know me by. Aren't we all alike to them?" She walked slowly around me, examining me as if I were an exhibit in an art gallery. "Most of us aren't fortunate enough to be-- _unique_. Call me Kunomon, if you like. Some know me by that name."

I just stood there. I had no clue as to what was going on and as most of my blind moves had gone horribly wrong lately, I thought it was best to do nothing.

She stopped in front of me and reached out a hand to touch my chest. She let her claws trail down over my stomach. "Nice--," she purred.

I grabbed her wrist and pulled it sharply away. She didn't offer any resistance. In fact, she stepped a bit closer to me and turned her head to the side, smiling and offering me her neck in submission. "You can call me whatever you want to, Coyomon. Anything-- I won't mind."

I let go of her wrist. "How do you know my name?"

"Your name is becoming very well known in the Digital Dimension. Did you think killing off devas was going unnoticed? Even some of the rabble have heard of you and your friends-- or should I say _ex_-friends?"

I just glared at her.

She smiled a sharp-toothed smile and said, "I love the way you look when you're angry-- so wild and _untamed_. You were never meant to be a slave to a pitiful human. You know that don't you?"

"A 'pitiful human' created me." I told her.

"Pft!" she spat, "With a few crude doodles? He just accidentally started the process. No child could have made something as--" she let her gaze travel over me again, "--as _delicious _as you."

I was confused. She was blatantly flattering me but there was an _edge _to it. _Damn it, _I thought_, the last thing I can afford to do in a subtle dance like this is be honest-- but I have no idea what else to do!_

I gave in. "What do you want?" I asked outright.

"Isn't it obvious?" she said, making her voice go low and throaty, "I want _you_, Coyomon."

"_What_?"

"_She _was stupid enough to spurn you. _She_ was seduced by Vajramon's hollow strength and position. I would never be that foolish. I knew Vajramon was stupid and careless. I can see the potential you have within you. With a mate suited to you-- one who would never desert you-- there's no telling how powerful you could become."

_Holy crap_. "N-no--" I stammered, "Renamon never _really_ considered it. She--"

"Then why," Kunomon snarled, "didn't she _deny _it? She would have never come back from the Digital Dimention if she wasn't infected with feelings for that human brat! You meant nothing to her after she'd found someone she thought was stronger!"

"That's not-- wait--" I narrowed my eyes at her. "How do you know what she said to me?"

"I was watching," Kunomon said without a trace of shame. "I've been watching you for a while, Coyomon. And I've learned some _amazing _things." She touched a claw tip to my shoulder and pulled it down through my fur, leaving a trail of violet sparks and a scent of ozone.

I gasped. The pleasurable sensation was tinged with tiny sparkles of pain, like an unexpected hot spice in familiar food.

"You're a nasty piece of work, Kunomon." I growled at her, halfheartedly.

"As nasty as you want me to be," she purred. "But I can be a good girl when I want to. I never came between you and her, did I? I _thought _about killing her but I didn't do it. I waited until she made the worst mistake of her life. _She _broke the bond between you two, not _me_."

I hung my head. I had no defense against her devious arguments. "But I still love her." I said, almost under my breath.

Kunomon lifted my chin with her hand until I was looking her in the eyes. Her expression was as gentle as her tough and hardened nature would allow. "I know. But she doesn't love _you _anymore."

"Get away from me," I yelled and shoved her away. She fell on her back and didn't get up-- just propped herself up on her elbows and regarded me coolly.

"I-- I'm sorry," I stammered.

She smiled, "I understand. You need some time to get used to the idea." She kicked herself up to her feet. "Take all the time you need, handsome-- you'll be mine in the end."

My brain finally kicked into gear. "Yours or the Digimon Sovereign's?"

Her laugh was wild and wicked. "Him? He wants you all _dead_."

"But Vajramon--"

"--was a pompous fool, blinded by desire. He wanted Renamon for _himself_. Surely you know that?"

"But you _do_ serve the Sovereign-- don't you?" I said, refusing to be sidetracked.

"Only because it serves my purposes," she snarled. "When he conquers this world I don't want to be left behind. I have no _desire _to serve _anyone_, human or digimon. With a powerful and clever partner I would have no _need _to serve anyone ever again."

"So why me?" I had her on the defensive and I wasn't about to give up my advantage. "There are a lot stronger digimon around. Why not one of them?"

"Don't play around with me, handsome," she said. "What other _Rookie _is a match for you? What other digimon of _any _level would you admit to being _cleverer_ than you?"

_Maybe you_, I thought in dismay. I could feel myself loosing the advantage. I had one last defense. "And where is love in all your plans?"

"Love?" She sneered. "What has _love _done for _you _lately?"

_Ouch! This vixen fights dirty._

"I'm talking about something _better_ than love," she pressed onward, "I'm talking about respect and cooperation. I'm talking about the _power_ we could share together!"

_How the heck did I end up on the defensive again?_ I wondered.

"She still respects me." It sounded weak even to my ears. "She knows I'll come to her aid if she needs me-- even if--"

"_BULLSHIT_," Kunomon snarled viciously, "If she respected you, she'd never have thrown _this _into the dirt!" From the top of her arm guard she pulled Renamon's taijitu necklace, dangling from its broken chain.

I tried to say something but no words would come. Finally I gave up. "Put that away--" I bowed my head. "--please."

She did. "I'm sorry," she said, "I didn't _want_ to hurt you."

_Gracious in victory_, I thought, _I guess she's not _all_ bad._

I sat down and tried to make sense of everything she'd told me. "Power is all you want?" I asked.

"You've lived in this world all your life," she said, "and things are different here." She sat facing me and spoke more kindly than before. "I've lived all my life in the Digital Dimension and I've fought for my life on nearly every day. Power is all that matters. It's the only road to victory. The weak and foolish die and are devoured."

I found myself understanding what Renamon must have been like before she met Rika. She and Kunomon were born into the same, merciless world where the only safety lay in being stronger and more vicious than everyone else.

"What about companionship? What about simple pleasures? Don't they have some place in your world?"

"You have to be alive to enjoy those things," she said coldly.

"But--"

"Oh, yes," she relented, "I know there is room in life for those things-- even in the Digital Dimension." She paused and when she spoke next she sounded a little wistful. "When I watched you and Renamon together-- it looked-- nice." She shook herself angrily. "But power is life-- power is all that really matters in the end."

I was struck by a sudden realization. "If you want power, _real_ power, there's one sure way to get it."

"_Tell me_." There was a desperately hungry look on her face.

"Find a tamer."

"_What_?" Kunomon's face twisted in rage. "Be a slave to a human _child_? What sort of power would _that_ bring me?"

"You said you've been watching me so you must have been at the stadium when Vajramon died." I spoke in a rush, wanting to get my point out before she could interrupt me. "Who killed him? Not big bad _me_, that's for sure! Renamon came into that place as a Rookie-- no more powerful than you are right now-- and a few minutes later she blasted your mighty deva to shreds with a frikkin' _paintbrush_!"

Kunomon looked nearly panic-stricken as she leapt to her feet. I stood up and advanced on her. "Did she do that on her own? No! It was that human child who _made_ her that powerful!"

"But she is a _slave_! She must follow the child's commands--"

"_Bullshit_!" By Tesla, I really loved turning Kunomon's own weapons against her. "If you really think that, then you must not have been watching closely enough! Didn't you see how much they care for and respect each other? I know you don't think much of love but they love each other, too." I was working up to my final shot, taking one step forward for every step Kunomon backed away. "And that love makes them both stronger than you can ever imagine!"

Kunomon was looking like a trapped animal but suddenly her eyes stopped darting from side to side and slitted down in thought. She stopped backing up and leaned forward almost touching her nose to mine. "If that's true," she hissed, "why don't _you_ have a tamer?"

"Because," I shouted right into her teeth, "I'm an _IDIOT_!"

"Wh-- what?"

"I've been confusing loneliness with loyalty for _years_ now! I'm the stupidest damn digimon on the planet! Renamon was right all along and I was too damned stubborn and foolish to see it! No wonder she got tired of me." I twisted and flailed wildly as I spoke. "If Renamon wants a powerful mate-- uhn-- I'm gonna damned well-- uhn-- give her one!"

Kunomon was staring at me wide-eyed.

"It's these damned digitigrade legs," I explained, "No matter how hard I try, I just can't manage to kick myself in the ass properly!" I turned and bent over in front of her. "Do it for me would you? Just a couple of swift ones in the fundament?"

She backed away from me to the very edge of the roof shaking her head. "You-- You're _crazy_."

"Well, _duh_! I'm a frikkin' coyote-- _hello_! But that doesn't mean I'm _wrong_!" I turned away from her and then remembered something. "Oh yeah," I said reaching quickly into the top of her arm guard and snatching the necklace out, "this doesn't belong to you."

And I shoved her off the roof.

--


	19. The Plan

--

--

Chapter 19

The Plan

--

"C'mon Henry, please?" I whined. "Please, please, pu_-lease_?"

"I don't know, Coyomon," he said, scratching his head. "It just seems wrong to me somehow."

"It's kinda creeping me out, too." Terriermon put in.

"But I've got to get her back and this is the only way I can figure out to do it! C'mon guys! Just-- oh wait, I forgot something!" I rummaged around in my vest, pulled out a thick wad of money, and held it out. "Here, Henry, this is for you!"

"Holy cow!" Henry gasped, "where did you get all that?" He made no move to take the stack of bills.

"From a bank vault," I told him. "It's okay-- they had lots. They won't miss a little bit."

Terriermon started snickering.

"No way!" Henry yelled wide-eyed, "You've got to put that back, Coyomon! We could get into big trouble!"

"I-- I don't understand. I thought people _liked_ money."

"But you can't just steal it!" Henry protested.

"Why not? I steal stuff all the time and nobody makes a fuss." I thought for a second. "Except that guy in the doughnut shop-- but I think that was just because I startled him when I--"

By then Terriermon was lying on his back, laughing and kicking his feet in glee.

"You're not helping!" Henry yelled at him.

"Momentai, Henry! He'll put it back!"

"Sure, no problem," I said, stuffing the money back into my vest. "I'm sorry, I just thought I should offer you something in exchange. It's an awfully big favor I'm asking."

"It's not that it's such a big deal," Henry said, calmer now that I had put the money away, "it's just that it-- I dunno-- _feels_ weird."

"Like sharing a toothbrush," Terriermon said.

"Not _helping_." I rumbled at him. He just giggled.

"Henry," I said, being very serious, "I can't just walk up to Renamon and grovel out an abject apology. I know her: She won't respect that. I have to show her I'm _worthy_ of her-- that I can be just as strong as she wants me to be."

"I think you're not giving her enough credit," Terriermon chimed in.

I changed tactics. "Okay then, how about the practical side of things?"

"Hmm--" Terriermon said, pretending to think, "--'practical' and 'Coyomon'-- nope, I just don't see the connection."

Henry thumped him on top of his head. "If you don't behave, I'm going hand you over to Susie for a nice long tea party."

"I'll be good." Terriermon mumbled contritely.

Henry turned to me. "What do you mean?"

"How many more deva goons are going to come after us? Wouldn't it be nice for me to be able digivolve into something more useful than a furry punching bag? Things are going to get rougher and we may need every bit of firepower we can muster."

"But," Henry frowned, puzzled, "I thought you needed this just once--"

"Oh, yeah, yeah," I cut him off, "but that's just for the _first_ part of my plan."

"Oh good!" Terriermon snorted, trying to stifle a laugh. "He's got a _plan_."

"_Tea party_," Henry growled at him out of the corner of his mouth.

"Just this once, Henry. Please." I begged.

Henry thought for a moment and then said, "I think it's Terriermon's choice to make."

I turned to the little guy and gave him my best puppy-eyes.

"Oh, brother!" I think he rolled his own eyes but they're so beady it was hard to tell. "Sure, sure-- what the heck. I wouldn't want to miss out on the big _plan_."

--

I wasn't sure the first step was going to work but it did: Henry came through like a champion. Which was a good thing because the only backup plan I had _was_ abject groveling.

A half-hour later, I stood on the rooftop across from Rika's house. I could sense Renamon was there somewhere but she was ignoring my presence. The crescent moon had set and the night was as dark as it was going to get. I planted all four of my paws firmly on the tiles on either side of the ridgeline and rolled my massive shoulders to loosen them up. I reached deep within myself and began raising every scrap of energy I could manage. The colors of my fur leaped and pulsed in response. My legs started to tremble with the inner force of all the restrained energy I had summoned.

_Okay, Renamon_, I thought as I brought all my concentration to bear, _just try and ignore_ THIS!

Brilliant light washed over the Nonaka home. Rich primary colors flashed across its walls and garden. Shadows jumped and danced as glowing strokes of light formed and moved along my flanks. It was taking a heck of a lot of power to produce the effect and I was sincerely hoping that Renamon would come out to see what was going on before I ran out of energy.

All the neighbors had.

At last she appeared, hopping lightly up onto the Nonaka's roof. She stood there perfectly still just staring at the words flowing across my body.

_**RENAMON!**_

I made those characters in a gold to match her fur, outlined with the sapphire of her eyes.

_**I**_

That one was pretty much the rusty reds and cream color of my Coyomon form.

_**LOVE**_

Pink with darker rose swirls. Yeah-- cliché-- but I'm not the subtle sort.

_**YOU!**_

Her colors again, fading into mine and then the whole word flowed into a taijitu symbol, the yin and yang made up of our colors instead of the traditional black and white.

I nodded my head to make the little necklace that hung from my teeth by its repaired chain catch the light-- and hopefully Renamon's attention.

Renamon just stood there, unmoving, through another cycle of my message. I was starting to run low on energy. Once more through and I didn't think I'd be able to keep it up any longer. When I got back around to 'love" she leaped. It was a powerful jump, almost flat in its trajectory, and she hit me in the chest with enough force to make me slew and slide across the roof tiles. I had to dig my hind claws in to keep my rear legs from slipping off the edge of the roof. She wrapped her arms as far around my neck as far as they would go and squeezed me with amazing strength. The light shining from my fur flickered and died, the symbols breaking up into meaningless swirls and patches. Her powerful claws sank into my mane and clenched there, pulling her even more tightly against me.

And there I was with no hands to hug back.

I made do by rubbing my muzzle up and down her back. "I missed you," I murmured, "Oh, lover-- I missed you so much."

She didn't say anything, just buried her face in my mane and hung on to me, little convulsions running through her body.

"Renachan? Lover? Why are you _crying_?"

--

We lit up the park in a serious way that night.

I used every iota of energy I had left in my Kaliskamon form to make Renamon feel loved, needed, cherished, and-- yeah-- _worshipped. _The way she responded was astonishing. Kind of like stepping on a land mind: Explosive, but without the getting-ripped-to-shreds part-- or maybe _not_. There were a couple of times I thought I'd die of pure pleasure-- or digivolve-- or _something_. My body just didn't seem capable of containing the feelings coursing through it.

Finally we lay curled around each other, exhausted. Good thing a deva didn't pick that moment to show up. I don't think either of us could have out-fought a kitten. I'd lost my Champion form somewhere in there and was just plain old Coyomon again. A police helicopter made a sweep over the park and swept its searchlight over the trees in a halfhearted way. With so many strange things happening in the city those days, nobody got excited over a little light show anymore. We held each other, languidly kissing and caressing for a long while. I don't think I'd ever been so happy in my life as I was that night.

It seemed a shame to ruin a perfect moment but there were things we needed to talk about. I told her all about Kunomon-- everything. Jealousy had made me do some really stupid things recently and I didn't want to give Renamon any reason to feel that way about _me_. Hiding anything would have made it seem like-- well, like I had something to hide.

"So," Renamon said when I had finished my story, "the Digimon Sovereign is sending spies as well as assassins?"

"Looks that way," I nodded. "At least one spy, anyway. She's been doing that shadow-and-phase trick that you used on the day you fought Harpymon."

"No chance she died from the fall, I suppose?"

"Naw-- even if she didn't manage to grab something on the way down, we were only fifty stories up."

"Then she still poses a threat," Renamon said. "I think we should hunt her down and kill her."

_Okay, Coyomon, old boy-- let's see if you can avoid stepping on any jealously land mines, Hm? _"Uh--" I said. _Brilliant_.

Renamon raised an eyebrow.

"Okay," I said slowly, "I'll trade you."

She cocked her head at me. "Trade-- what?"

"Impmon," I said. "You let me eviscerate that little shit and then we'll go put an end to Kunomon."

"What has Impmon got to do with this?" She asked, frowning.

"Did you know he tried to kill Henry's dad?"

"I-- I heard something about that-- but I don't think Impmon intended to _kill_ him."

"Maybe not," I admitted. " His little firecrackers don't faze _us_ much, so maybe he thought he was just going to burn Mr. Wong a little bit. But that doesn't change the fact that if the guy wasn't pretty fast with a briefcase block, Henry wouldn't have a father right now."

"So--?" Renamon was waiting for me to get to the point.

"So, I see the little twerp as graduating from an annoyance to a real threat." I cupped her cheek with one hand and looked directly into her eyes. "But I know you _don't_. I know you think there's something in him worth saving and, even though I can't imagine what it might be, I trust your judgment."

She put her hand over mine and turned her muzzle to kiss the palm of my hand. "And you see something worthwhile in Kunomon?"

I nodded. "I think I do."

Renamon stared into my eyes for a long while and then sighed. "Alright. We'll leave her be for now. But--" she grinned her beautiful, frightening grin, "--if I catch her flirting with you again, I get to rip her arms off."

I grinned back. "Fair enough."

That brought us to the most important topic of conversation for the evening. I put it off for a while by kissing and nibbling every bit of Renamon I could without unwinding myself from our embrace. She made such an incredibly sexy noise when I nipped at the base of her neck that it damned near made me forget what I needed to tell her. If it wasn't for total exhaustion I would have lit her up again right then.

_Oh well--_ I sighed to myself, _--here's goes nothing._

"I've decided on who I want for a tamer."

Renamon's eyes went wide. "But I thought you discovered how to digivolve without one."

I shook my head sadly. "No. After that one time, I've never been able to do it again. Tonight I had Henry's help."

"Henry?" she gasped, "But he and Terriermon--"

"No, no, wait, you're getting ahead of me."

"Okay," she said, taking several deep breaths, "tell me."

I looked at her from the corner of my eye and gave her a sickly grin, "I don't know if you're gonna like this--"

--

"Rika-dono," I said just loud enough to be heard through the door of her room. It was late but I knew she was awake.

"Coyomon?"

"Rika-dono" I repeated, "I have something to ask of you."

"Renamon." she whispered. I could hear her stand up and the soft sigh of displaced air as Renamon phased in beside her.

"I'm here Rika."

"Coyomon is outside." There was puzzlement in her voice.

"Then shouldn't you see what he wants?" Renamon calmly asked her.

After a moment's hesitation the screen slid to one side to reveal Rika with Renamon towering behind her.

I was kneeling in the garden on the gravel in the traditional posture of a samurai before his lord, head bowed. "Rika-dono, may I speak?"

Dual expressions of surprise and uncertainty battled on her face. "Why are you calling me 'dono'?" she finally managed to ask.

I raised my head. "I call you dono out of the respect I hold for you and out of hope that you will accept my offer."

"What are you talking about?" She was starting to sound annoyed. "Listen, Coyomon, it's late and--" She took a step forward as she spoke and her toe lightly touched what lay on the edge of the floor before me. She looked down.

The plastic case was turning slowly on the polished wood from the tap of her foot. She recognized it instantly and figured out where it had come from only a moment later. Rika was just as smart as she was tough.

"I offer myself to you, Rika-dono. I know I have no right to expect you to accept but there is no one else worthy to be my tamer-- no one in this world."

She stood frozen for a long, long time, staring down at my digivice.

Finally she took a step back and glanced up at Renamon. Her partner gazed impassively back, saying nothing.

Rika turned back to me. "Come in-- we need to talk." She turned and went back into her room, Renamon shadowing her.

I rose, picked up the little plastic instrument that still bore a faint trace of the scent of my dead tamer on it, and went in.

--


	20. Teamwork

--

--

Chapter 20

Teamwork

--

The sky in the East was getting light by the time we had talked ourselves out. I had tried to be as coolly logical as I could manage: It was what I though Rika would respond to best. She was just as formal with me. I took that to mean she was uncomfortable with the whole situation (_I_ certainly was) but with the help of a few wise observations from Renamon, we did reach an accord at last.

"So," Rika said, summing up the points of our agreement, "you'll come when I call and fight when I tell you to-- but I'm _Renamon's_ tamer first. Don't expect me to waste any time on you when she might need me and don't _ever_ get in her way."

"I understand."

"Meet me in the park this afternoon for some training." She said, stifling a yawn. "Now go away, I've got to get some sleep."

"As you wish."

I backed to the door and slid it to one side. Renamon rose to follow.

"Not you Renamon," Rika commanded, "I want you to stay here."

A glance of understanding passed between Renamon and I. She folded herself into a lotus position next to Rika's futon.

_This could be rough_, I told myself as I slid the door shut. _But at least Renamon and I will be together._

Despite the nearly overwhelming urge to listen in on whatever Rika was saying to Renamon, I headed out for my tower. Sometimes I _could_ manage to overcome my coyote nature.

--

Rika flipped her cards around with the dexterity of a stage magician. She could pull a handful of cards out of her pouch, fan them out, read them, select one and slash it through Renamon's digivice in only a few seconds.

"You've got to know what to do with the mod as soon as I give it to you," she told me. "I'm not going to give you Hyper Wings just so you can maneuver faster. Wings are for gaining the high ground."

"Right," I said. I hadn't realized that a good tamer had to know so much about combat.

"If I give you a fire attack of some sort, it's because I'm pretty sure your opponent is vulnerable to fire." Rika continued. "I'm not pulling these cards out at random, you know."

"No, of course not," I nodded.

"If a special attack based on fire, or ice, or whatever, doesn't finish off your opponent, it's still a good clue as to what to do next. The stats I pull up on the digivice--" Rika paused and frowned. "You're fidgeting."

"Well-- I'm kind of excited by all this, Rika," I admitted. "I can't wait to try this stuff out in a real fight."

She stared at me with narrowed eyes for a while and then slipped her handful of cards back into her pouch and stood up. Renamon turned toward us from where she had been watching Guilmon playing with Takato and his friends.

"Okay, then," Rika said as she thumbed on my digivice, "let's see if there are any victims handy." She glanced up from the screen toward the trees across the pond. "No-- that's just Impmon--" she said to herself and went back to studying the readout.

I looked up at the little digimon where he perched on a branch, watching the horseplay below him. He was always somewhere nearby when the gang got together. I wondered briefly if he might be a spy for the Digimon Sovereign but realized that if he'd had such a connection he'd have bragged about it to someone long before now. He might be nasty and sneaky but there was no way he could keep a secret like that for more than a minute. He caught me looking at him and took off in a hurry.

"You're out of luck, flea-bag," Rika said, interrupting my thoughts, "I don't see a thing. So why don't you listen to the rest of what I have to say and then I'll let you and Renamon spar for a bit."

"Yes, Rika. Thank you."

She looked at me for a second like she thought I might have meant it sarcastically but shrugged and went on with her lecture. It really _was_ interesting. But I began to realize that the whole system was based more on dueling than on warfare. No wonder our instincts were slanted toward the toe-to-toe, slug-it-out sort of fighting. Fun-- but I didn't think that was the sort of future that lay in store for us.

Still-- I paid attention and asked pertinent questions at several points, so Rika seemed satisfied.

"Okay," she said once she had answered my final question, "I've heard all about you two sparring. Now I'd like to see you do it."

Renamon and I instantly faced each other and snapped sharply into ready positions. We'd done this a thousand times and had fallen into the habit of starting out with clean precision and formality. The noise of Guilmon's rowdy playmates stilled as they turned to watch.

"Anytime," Rika said.

We blurred into action. Renamon opened with a savage side snap kick followed by a spinning back kick. I blocked the snap kick and dodged the back, throwing an axe kick at where her head ought to have been and then drove in with a series of reverse punches. She ducked under my kick and met each one of my punches with a tight, powerful block.

_Damn,_ I thought, _she's getting stronger every day!_

Renamon hooked a leg around in a blindingly fast sweep and I had no choice but to get above it. I turned my jump into a forward roll over her head and threw a back kick as soon as I landed, but of course she wasn't there. I assumed she'd dodge and go with a kick of her own, so I spun and lunged to get inside her range and maybe get an elbow in somewhere.

Maybe I'd done that move once too often.

Renamon had stepped back just the perfect distance for a reverse punch and caught me right in the solar plexus as I was coming in at her. Her fist smacked solidly into my stomach and I acknowledged the hit with a little nod as I spun aside and threw another axe kick at her head.

We made another couple of passes before I scored a hit on her. It was a feinted sweep that turned into a good clean kick in the ribs. Renamon flashed me a brief grin as we continued.

The problem with sparring so much together was that we started thinking alike. Several times we made identical attacks and blocked them the same way. The showiest collision came when we both threw low-powered specials at each other at the exact same time. My Fang Flurry met her Diamond Storm and they annihilated each other in a violet flash halfway between us.

"Stop!" yelled Rika.

We both leaped back and relaxed.

"Whoa!" cried Kenta, "that was awesome!" The rest of the gang also made appreciative noises.

Rika snorted derisively, pulled a card out of her pouch and said to Renamon and I, "one more time."

We obediently snapped into our ready stances again.

"Go."

Looking away from Renamon during a bout would be inviting a serious collection of bruises but I did catch a bit of Rika's action out of the corner of my eye. She whipped the card around to belt level and did something complex with her hand. After that I was too busy with not getting slugged. We had another good bout-- nice and crisp. But I felt a bit odd-- like the air around me was thicker or something. I got in a solid couple of mid-line punches and Renamon whapped me a good one with her tail before Rika stopped the fight again.

We stepped apart, both breathing a bit rapidly. Kenta and the rest were just staring, opened-mouthed.

"Now, _that_," Rika said smugly, "was awesome."

"Uh--" I frowned, "what was awesome? We just did the same thing as last time."

"Dude!" said Kenta, "She totally slapped a Hyper Speed on you both! It was like watching a furry tornado!"

"Crap! I got a mod and I didn't even know it?" I said.

"What would you have done if I had told you first?" Rika asked, "done a happy little dance while Renamon used you for a soccer ball?"

"Well, no-- I guess--" I shrugged, "I don't know."

"You did just what you should have, flea-bag," Rika said severely. Only she could make a compliment sound like a reprimand. "You fought the fight with no messing around. And I," she said, flipping the card she was holding across her waist and just below the slots of the two digivices that hung at her belt in demonstration, "got a little practice myself."

I flicked a glance at Renamon that meant 'follow my lead', placed my hands, palms together, in front of me and bowed to Rika. "Thank you for the lesson, Rika." Renamon mirrored my movements.

Well, _that_ at least flustered Rika a little. "Uh-- yeah. No problem guys."

"Aw, man," Kenta whispered to Kazu, "she's got two digimon and we don't have _any_. That's so totally unfair."

I smiled to myself. _Too bad, Kenta-- _life_ is unfair. You've just got to work it so it's unfair in your favor._

--

After the training session Renamon and I headed for a treetop to get a little cuddling time together. We had just settled down when a big wavefront of phase energy rolled over us.

We were at Rika's side even before she called for us. "It's got to be a deva!" I said.

Rika nodded as she ran. "No stats on the digivice yet but it sure is a big one."

I grinned. _This is going to be fun!_

It wasn't.

When we got through the fog of the digital field we found the deva alright-- a huge horse-like guy with some sort of giant seashell strapped to his back-- and Impmon was there mouthing off to him.

My Bigdamn Pony ignored him as soon as _we_ arrived and began to berate us as 'Tainted Ones' and a bunch more pompous crap I didn't bother listening to. I was more concerned about when Rika was going to let me off the leash.

But horse-face was more interested in bloviating than fighting. After he had chastised us to his satisfaction, he lifted off the ground and faded out. I leaped for the nearby apartment building's roof and phased out but the only trace of him was a faint energy trail that drifted off to the East.

_Great,_ I thought, _another bozo with cool trick that I _don't_ know how to do._

I phased in and jumped back down. "Sorry, Rika, I lost him."

Rika was about to say something when Impmon exploded. "Why'd _you_ have to show up? I could have beaten him by myself!"

Rika stared at him in astonishment. "You're kidding, right?"

"Impmon, you can't even digivolve," said Renamon. "You wouldn't stand a chance."

That really set him off. "How do you _know_ I can't digivolve? Dog-boy here did it, and anything he can do, I can do _better_! I'm the strongest digimon around! I--" Impmon went on like that for quite a while.

"I think the deva went somewhere to the East of us, Rika," I started talking to her before Impmon had finished his rant. I figured that if I waited for him to get tired of flapping his mouth, the horse deva might die of old age before I had a chance to kill him.

Rika nodded. "The others should be on their way--"

"HEY!" Impmon yelled at her, red in the face, "I'm _talking_ here!"

I whirled and swung a slap at his face, claws out, but it never connected. Renamon had grabbed my arm. I forced the tension out of my body and she let go.

"Sorry," we both said quietly at nearly the same time.

Impmon had flinched back and was now looking back and forth between the two of us. "You guys are pathetic!" he sneered. "Stay away from me!" He turned and ran off.

Rika was glaring after him. "He needs to have the tar beaten out of him, put back in, and beaten out again."

_Oh please,_ I thought, _tell me to do it!_ I wondered if there was any such modify card as 'A Slow, Lingering Death from Cancer of the Attitude'.

"C'mon, let's go." Rika said.

I turned to follow her but Renamon lingered, looking after the little twerp.

_What the heck does she see in him?_ I wondered for the umpteenth time.

--

About a half hour later we heard a big commotion going on a couple of blocks away.

"Go on," Rika said to us, "I'll catch up. But if it's the deva, don't attack until I get there."

It was a digimon on the rampage all right-- the traffic was snarled, people were screaming, there were policemen waving guns around. But the cause of it all was a tad smaller than My Bigdamn Pony.

Okay, a _lot_ smaller: It was Impmon.

"He's finally gone completely insane." I said as I watched the little twerp dent in car roofs and fling his little fireballs like some kind of pint-sized Godzilla.

Several police took aim at Impmon and he prepared to fling a fireball at them. I crouched for a leap. No way was I going to let that little shit kill a poor cop who was only trying to protect people.

But Renamon beat me to it. She leaped in front of Impmon, blocked his attack and then grabbed him up in one hand-- all so fast that nobody watching could figure out what had happened. She yanked him up into an enclosed area of scaffolding beneath an overpass. I followed.

Impmon was dangling ungracefully from Renamon's outstretched claws. She was frowning ferociously at him.

_Oh boy_, I thought, _this should be good!_

Renamon glanced at me. "Please let me handle this by myself, Coyomon."

I was about to say something stupid like, 'If Kunomon came slinking around would you leave _us_ alone together?' but I had a sudden attack of wisdom and I just nodded and climbed to the top of a nearby building.

_No fun for _me_ today_, I thought sourly. But I was wrong again. Only minutes later old horse-face showed up again.

--


	21. Death and Life

--

--

Chapter 21

Death and Life

--

I dropped down beside Rika and Renamon joined us seconds later. The sidewalks were crowded with panicky, fleeing people so we ran in the roadway. The lanes outbound from the digital fogbank were, unsurprisingly, free of traffic.

"Indramon," Rika read out his stats from her digivice for us. I didn't much care for the sound of that 'Horn of Desolation' but I wanted to get at him so bad, I was twitching.

Then, as welcome as a fly in a punchbowl, Impmon showed up and challenged the deva to single combat.

No-- _really_.

My Bigdamn Pony laughed at him, of course. I was too mad to laugh. "Get out of our way, you crazy little twerp!" I yelled at him.

"Shut your face, dog-boy! _You_ stay out of _my_ way," he yelled back at me, "or else!" And he flung one of his little fireballs in my direction.

I swatted it out of the air. "Rika?" I was hoping she'd tell me to swat Impmon as well but it was Renamon who answered.

"Let him fight," she said, crossing her arms over her chest.

"What?" I said in surprise. "But he's gonna get--" I stopped. Of _course_ he was going to get himself mangled. It couldn't be more obvious. Had Renamon finally gotten sick of Impmon's bad behavior and abrasive manners and given up on trying to salvage something out of him? I could only hope.

"Okay," I shrugged, "fine by me."

Impmon took a ridiculously long time to summon up the energy for his opening special attack. Indramon waited patiently. The blast of flame of the Inferno Funnel was more impressive than Impmon's usual firecrackers but it looked as pitiful as a flaring match head when it impacted Indramon's vast chest.

"Ooh, that tickles!" the deva said, not moving a muscle.

_A sense of humor, huh?_ I thought. _I might like this guy if I got to know him. Too bad I'm going to kill him soon._

Indramon flicked out one of his enormous hand-hooves and batted Impmon like a cat playing with a moth. The little digimon slammed into the pavement and rolled over and over. It hurt just to watch it. He staggered to his feet and faced his opponent again just and the rest of the gang showed up. In the way of good guys everywhere, they immediately wanted to go to Impmon's aid-- but Renamon stopped them.

"He wants to do it himself," she told them. "We should respect his wishes."

I wondered if our lovemaking could transfer something more than attack energy configurations-- maybe my twisted sense of humor, for instance?

A couple more hits from Indramon's gigantic hooves and Impmon was flat on his back, looking distinctly fuzzy around the edges.

_Yup,_ I thought, _there he goes-- one more tap and he'll fragment. _It was weird-- I didn't really feel happy about that.

The rest of the gang could see it, too. Except for Rika, they were all agitating for a rescue but Renamon held them back.

Indramon went to grind Impmon into the pavement and at the last possible instant Renamon flashed under the massive descending hoof and snatched Impmon to safety.

My Bigdamn Pony lost his sense of humor right about then and smacked Renamon a good one in frustrated anger.

The warm-up comedy show was over and it was time for the main event. Out came the cards and we all digivolved into our Champion forms. Indramon unslung the Horn of Desolation. No more messing around for any of us.

The air crackled with all the energy we were raising for our attacks and I couldn't figure out why horse-face was smiling. Even for an Ultimate deva, facing four Champions, standing shoulder-to-shoulder should be a daunting--

_Shoulder-to-shoulder? Oh hell! _I stared down the maw of that mysterious horn Indramon was holding and my hackles rose. "Scatter!" I yelled urgently. "Scatter! Spread out!" I leaped sideways and did a jump-turn off a wall, trying to get around the deva. He turned to follow me-- but he wasn't smiling any more.

"Eat _this_, you plow horse!" I yelled as I released my Razor Tail attack energy. I spun and flung the shining blades off of my tail and straight for his head. He raised the horn slightly and the glittering blades disappeared into its maw and vanished without a trace.

_How many cute tricks does this guy have?_ I was asking myself just as he began to grow.

Yeah, _grow_.

That damned horn must have enabled him to absorb attack energy and use it for himself. He must have gained two meters in height before the other attacks hit him. Gargomon's Gargo Lasers raked one side as Kyuubimon's Dragon Wheel burst on the other. Indramon staggered and roared in anger just as Growlmon's Pyro Blaster smacked into his back. His head snapped violently backward, the long hair that hung down over his face flew up and his blazing eyes met mine for the first time.

He was _not_ a happy pony.

"Aww-- 'smatter, dobbin?" I sneered at him. "Upset we're not playing by the _rules_?"

I really, really, _really_ should learn when to keep my smart mouth shut.

He took a deep breath and blew the horn at me. The pavement of the expressway curled up and raced toward me like a giant breaking wave at the beach. Then the shockwave hit me and I was tumbling backwards, chunks of concrete, steel and asphalt battering against me like I was a mouse in a blender full of gravel. I rolled my self into a ball and tried to ride it out, every part of me screaming in pain.

When things settled down, I struggled to force myself out from under the pile of rubble that covered me, coughing and choking on the dust of pulverized roadway. As I shouldered off the last slab of concrete I saw Impmon charging in to fill the gap I'd left in the circle around Indramon.

"NO!" I yelled hoarsely, "Impmon, _don't_--" But it was too late. Indramon's hoof smashed into him like a freight train hitting a rabbit. His body blasted clear through the corner of an office building and tumbled away into the distance, limp and broken.

Steam burst from my mouth as my teeth went red hot and I crouched to leap for the bastard's throat. He had let the horn rise above him to free his hooves for his attack on Impmon and if I could get past it before it returned to him--

Suddenly the world went all wonky.

We all felt the force but it was obviously directed at Indramon. He reeled and lurched, his body seeming to twist and deform. I suspiciously thought for a second that it was some nasty new trick he was preparing but, no, he was in serious distress. I flipped out of sync and saw a strange energy field surrounding and ripping away at him. Whatever it was didn't last long but it was certainly unnerving. Indramon backed out of the fight, pulling his vanishing act again.

Kyuubimon came to my side. "Impmon?" she asked. She had been on the other side of Indramon when he'd struck the little guy and hadn't seen what had happened to him.

I pointed with my muzzle. "That way. But--" I shook my head sadly, "he can't have survived."

We looked for him anyway.

The city was in an uproar. Police, news and JASDF helicopters circled everywhere and every police and SWAT team in the city seemed to be in the area. It made searching a big pain in the butt. In addition, we had to worry about Indramon making a sudden reappearance and I had to pause every once in a while to feel for tiny irregularities in the energy fields that would betray the presence of Kunomon, or someone like her, lurking nearby. I was getting damned tired of the paranoid mindset really quickly.

I phased into sync to sniff at a large storm drain. "He might have crawled--" I began to say to Kyuubimon when two bullets smacked into my side. I sighed and turned to the nervous cop who had just shot me. "Relax," I told him, "I'm one of the good guys."

He emptied the rest of the clip into me and fumbled for a reload.

"Really," Kyuubimon said to the policeman as she phased in beside him, "we're on your side. Now be a good boy and stop playing with your gun or I'll come visit you in your dreams." Her eyes suddenly blazed with brilliant intensity.

"Ki-- ki-- kitsune!" the cop gasped out and fell over in a dead faint.

"Wow," I said admiringly, "way to work a reputation! Nobody in this country is that afraid of a _coyote_."

Rika called us back then. No one had found any trace of the big horse or the little imp. We decided to hold on to our champion forms as long as we could in case Indramon popped back up. We needed to get off the streets, though. Things were chaotic enough without renewed sightings of 'monsters' around the city. Takato led us to a huge tunnel that the gang had evidently used before.

"You guys will be out of sight here while we patrol around with our digivices," Rika told us.

"Be careful," I said to her.

"Don't worry about me, flea-bag. Just be ready for when we find the deva."

"Oh, I'm _more_ than ready to send that nag to the glue factory," I assured her.

--

We talked among ourselves for a short time but soon fell silent. Nobody was feeling very chatty. We hadn't lost-- but we sure hadn't won, either, and we knew that the solid hits we had scored on Indramon before the weird event had chased him off really hadn't done that much damaged to him. We still had a desperate fight ahead of us sometime soon.

And we'd lost someone we all knew well-- maybe not a friend, exactly, but a presence that was now a gap in our world. Kyuubimon hadn't said anything at all-- she just lay staring at the tunnel wall. I knew what was troubling her and I knew she wouldn't want to discuss it in front of the others.

I nosed her flank. "Take a little walk with me, will you?" I asked her. To the others I said, "We'll be back in a little while, guys."

She glanced at me and for a second I thought she'd refuse but she got to her feet and walked slowly down the tunnel by my side.

We walked about a mile or so in silence before I spoke. "I'm so sorry, lover."

She stopped and leaned her head against my shoulder. "I feel like I failed him," she said quietly.

"The _hell_ you did! You gave him every chance-- and more credit than any of the rest of us." I hung my head. "I-- I didn't like him much and I teased the heck out of him a few times. I'm sorry for that now." I rubbed my cheek along the top of her head.

"I don't know why I felt such a need to help him," she said, "but I thought I was getting somewhere just before--" she raised her head and looked up at me. "I think he had a tamer once."

That shocked me. "Like-- like me?"

"I'm not sure," Kyuubimon shook her head, "and now I'll never know."

_Damnit!_ I thought, _why am I always lacking arms when she needs a hug so badly?_ I made do by rubbing myself against her and licking at her muzzle. "Kyuubichan, every day I find more reasons to love you. None of the rest of us were kind enough to make an effort with Impmon. Where did you learn compassion like that?"

She didn't say anything. It was a stupid question, anyway.

I kissed her-- or tried to. That was the first time we'd been together while both in our Champion forms and we weren't yet accustomed to the combination. But we figured it out quickly enough.

What started out as a comforting embrace turned passionate with surprising speed. We rubbed against each other, a warm exchange of energy flowing between us. All the love and tenderness I usually felt toward her was still there but the desire that suddenly swelled in me overwhelmed everything else.

I leaned over her shoulders and nipped at the base of her neck. She moaned something unintelligible and I put one of my forelegs across her, pressing down firmly and stroking the powerful curve of her back. She shuddered and curved herself against me, pressing her hip against my flank, moving in a slow, sensual way that drove every rational though out of my head.

There was no physical reason to take her the way I did-- but it felt right-- no, _more_ than right, it felt _necessary_. Kyuubimon parted her glorious fan of tails and I slid up over her back, gripping her magnificent body with my forelegs and burying my muzzle in her thick ruff-- drinking in her scent. I pulled energy from deep within me and thrust it into her as my body flexed above her. Her back arched and she cried out my name in a hoarse, breathy whisper. Then her muscles surged and rippled down the length of her exquisite form and the same energy came flooding back into me, changed in some subtle way.

I could give no thought to what was happening then-- I was driven by an urgent need to connect with my lover in the most primal way possible, and my body moved of its own accord, flexing and curving against hers as the energy surged between us, seeming to grow with each exchange.

Our lovemaking had never been like this before-- never so _needful_. The walls flashed with patterns of light and shadow. Actinic bursts of blue and red mingled with the softer hues shining from my fur patterns as the crackle of static discharge mixed with a deeper throbbing pulse of sound that echoed down the tunnel. We moved with a savage intensity, exerting all our physical strength against each other in concert with our expanding shared energy until the world flew to pieces.

There was a light so bright that, even with my eyes squeezed tightly shut, all I could see was whiteness. There was a sound so loud that it became silence. For an instant or an eternity I was only a white-hot cloud of ecstasy with no other form or purpose.

And then I was Coyomon again, spinning through a strange place lit by a whirling maelstrom of light. Renamon was facing me, turning as I turned in the small, enclosed space we found ourselves in. Her fur rippled and parted as the first brightly glowing blue line emerged from her body. I gasped at the feeling of one of my own nurbs leaving my belly. It should have been frightening, feeling myself come apart like that, but it was just the opposite. I felt at peace.

More and more of the lines that defined our very essence came away from us both, until a few dozen turned in a writhing cloud between us. Renamon and I watched them as they wove themselves together into a ball.

No, it _wasn't_ a ball.

It was an egg.

Particles of our outer skin came away and condensed around the egg's shape, giving it a rich golden color that was shot through with flakes of rusty red. We had only a few moments to admire the wonder we had unknowingly created before the energy vortex surrounding us dissipated and the egg vanished in a sparkle of light and dark pixels-- leaving us alone together in the dark tunnel.

--


	22. LeaveTaking

--

Chapter 22

Leave-taking

--

Well, it looks like I'm running out of blank pages in Danny's sketchbook, so I'm going to have to skim over a lot of stuff. I'm still not sure why I felt compelled to write all this down, anyway.

I don't know why our egg was pulled into the Digital Dimension but then there's so much I don't know about that place. Renamon and I were torn between the joy of the event and the grief of separation from our child. But digimon are tough-- designed and bred for battle. We told ourselves that any digimon that was a blend of the two of us wouldn't be easy prey. That helped a little, I think.

The days after Impmon died were pretty much a series of deva slug-fests. Indramon, Kumbhiramon, Vikaralamon. We all got a lot stronger and more experienced. I never did digivolve beyond Kaliskamon, though I spent most of the time fighting in that form. Things got pretty hairy (pun intended) and Rika couldn't spare a lot of focus or concern for me. And that was pretty much the secret we learned: The digivices and cards were just ways to concentrate the tamers' minds or energy or focus or whatever-- they weren't really necessary as long as Calumon was around. Of course we only figured that out just before that noisy monkey deva kidnapped him.

Yeah, Calumon-- squishy little Calumon, turned out to be the key to this whole mess. That's why we have to go get him back.

Oh Bleedin' Tesla, I almost forgot about Jeri and Leomon! I get the urge to bang my head against a post every time I think about them. A more mismatched tamer and mon pair I can't imagine. I break out in a cold sweat every time I think that it might have happened to _me_ if I hadn't hooked up with Rika in time.

Last page-- gotta wrap this up.

We're leaving for the Digital Dimension in the morning. Guilmon dug up a portal that was big enough for us all to pass through. Damned good nose on that little dragon.

All the kids made their goodbyes-- some less openly than others. I guess this book is mine. I'll put this where Mr. Wong will find it after we leave.

(Hi, Mr. Wong! I hope you find something interesting in here-- and thanks for helping to create all of us. Even if things got a bit out of hand, it's still been a lot of fun-- being alive and all. I'll watch out for Henry. He's a good kid.)

I wish I had something wise or profound to end this with-- but wisdom and suchlike aren't much in my line. Coyotes are best known for their foolishness and shallow nature, after all. Still-- I've earned the love and respect of the most magnificent creature in existence and we've made something wonderful and unique together, so I must be doing _something _right.

We digimon are the embodiment of humanity's incredibly varied stories of spirits, heroes and gods. True, with some of us it seems like those myths have been thrown into a blender and stuck back together at random, but those ones are no less creatures of impassioned imagination for all that.

So, tomorrow we're walking into a world that could contain any of humanity's dreams, legends-- or _nightmares_.

If I had any sense, I'd be terrified.

But there is something else waiting there for Renamon and I-- something we created together-- and that will make it worth all the effort and risk.

Oh yeah-- and saving the world. That, too.

--

--

--

**--oOo--oOo--oOo--**

**Author's Notes:**

**If you've read all this and enjoyed it even a little bit, please leave a review, even if it's just one line.**

**(The rest is just my blather about how I wrote the story. Feel free to skip it like a bad DVD commentary track.)**

**I tried to stay as true as possible to the world, events, and characters of **_**Digimon Tamers**_** as I could, given the introduction (and interference) of a non-canon character, but there's one major change I **_**did**_** make to their world: Nobody shouts out the name of their special attack before they launch it. As a martial artist, I think the idea that someone would **_**tell**_** their opponent what attack was coming is ridiculous. It may serve all right as a device for film and video games but in print it just doesn't work for me. I did my best to keep all the canon characters In Character because, as I see it, if they're not IC, they're **_**not**_** the same characters. If I changed their personalities, I might as well have changed all their names and appearances and made them original characters.**

**Male and female digimon are pretty obviously male and female despite the established fact that they are **_**physically**_** genderless. It was a happy combination of circumstances that led me to the idea about the way that such creatures might make love. Detailed descriptions of "plumbing" in a story always seem jarring to me if the story's main focus is plot or romance, anyway. Also, I had set the challenge for myself of not deviating from the way the world of Digimon Tamers was depicted in the series and (with a lot of characters not wearing any pants) it was clear that there was no "plumbing" to describe. (In one of the later episodes, Renamon even **_**says**_** as much.) Thankfully, I found a way for my characters to physically express their love that dodged the issue.**

**This was supposed to be a short story-- maybe five chapters or so, but it got completely out of hand. I've always been intrigued by what might be the view of things from a digimon's perspective and I wanted to explore the thinking of a digimon character who didn't blindly accept the way things were. After several false starts I found that (for me) such a story just **_**had**_** to be written in the first person.**

**Thanks for reading.**

**--oOo--oOo--oOo--**

**eqgz-xjynrb-zglhmqo**

**--oOo--oOo--oOo--**

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